Since people seem to be so concerned about the lack of buzz around RailsConf Europe, I’ll officially start the buzz here. Ok, not officially, and not even start, since David already kicked it off a few weeks ago. But I’ll enumerate a few reasons that make the steep price worthwhile, for me at least.

Today’s reason: Kathy Sierra

If you haven’t heard about Kathy Sierra or her blog Creating Passionate Users, you must have been living the last year your head stuck in a dark place. Kathy is one of the very few writers that can write compelling, useful articles every. single. day. No wonder she’s been one of the blogging rookies of the past two years, rising from zero to Technorati Top 100 hero in no time at all.

If I would have to select a single blog I would be able to read on a desert island, that would probably be Creating Passionate Users. Sorry, all you great Rails, hacking, web standards/design and business blogs. But I just can’t think of a blog with as universal appeal to a hacker-designer-entrepreneur-geek as Kathy’s. Her writing just clicks. And if she’s even distantly as great a speaker as she is a writer, seeing her keynote live is probably alone worth the torture of hopping to Stansted in a cramped Ryanair seat.

Rails is all about programmer happiness, and there is no better way to celebrate that than the living embodiment of passion opening the conference.