euruko2012/call-for-proposals — pull request #97 by schneems (2012-03-29 18:51:44+00:00)
Title: My Server for Aiur: How Starcraft Taught Me To Scale

# Talk

All the Starcraft n00bs know just what to do. They take all the resources they can, and upgrade all the expensive tech and think to themselves, "soon i'll be unstoppable". Unfortunately "eventually unstoppable" is the same as dead right now. Premature optimization and abstraction can kill a business faster than not being able to scale. In this talk we'll take a look at how to pick the right unit composition (databases vs. NoSQL), balance your macro and micro (scale out vs. up), and choose the right race (programing language). If you've never played Starcraft, and can't tell a ultralisk from a firebat, don't worry there's still a room for you. Sorry, no Zerg allowed.

## Bio

Richard was a Platinum 1v1 Random Starcraft 2 player, before he decided to resume seeing daylight. He now works for Heroku helping to scale millions of applications. He loves developing in Ruby and collecting vespene gas. When he's not at work he teaches Rails at the University of Texas and enjoys snowboarding.