Lightning Talk: Be Moar Ridiculous

by Anthony Navarre

In this lightning talk titled "Be More Ridiculous," speaker Anthony Navarre, a Ruby on Rails developer at Factory Design Labs, shares his insights on personal and professional development through embracing absurdity and humor in coding. Navarre emphasizes that he is not the smartest in his field, but rather benefits from the support of colleagues and the collective knowledge shared by the developer community through blogs and online resources.

Key points discussed include:
- The importance of collaboration and community in programming, highlighting how these elements allow individuals to grow as developers.
- The concept of ‘ridiculousness’ as a powerful tool for both personal and professional growth. Navarre suggests that moments in life that feel ridiculous often lead to significant experiences.
- A personal anecdote about meeting his wife after encountering a series of ridiculous circumstances during a flight adds depth to his argument about embracing the absurd.
- Encouragement to engage in ridiculousness within teamwork as a means to foster creativity and camaraderie among colleagues.
- A discussion on coding practices such as Test-Driven Development (TDD), where he finds it ridiculous that developers are urged to create the simplest solutions possible. This spurs excitement in discovering the minimal required functionalities in coding.
- A call to action for developers to embrace ridiculousness in their coding practices, suggesting that it can lead to uncovering unexpected solutions and innovative practices.

Navarre concludes by urging the audience to use the word "ridiculous" as a compliment and to continually challenge boundaries in both coding and collaborative work. The overall takeaway is that embracing a more ridiculous approach can lead to enhanced creativity and personal growth in the tech industry.

00:00:04.799 Hi everyone! My presentation is titled "Be More Ridiculous." Hi, my name is Anthony Navarre. I'm a Ruby on Rails nerd at Factory Design Labs in Cherry Creek, Denver. I'm here to tell you about a few tools that I can't live without, but one in particular that allows me to sometimes go from being a good developer to a great developer, and occasionally, from a good person to a great person.

00:00:16.960 First of all, in my day-to-day job, I'm not the smartest person when I walk into the room. My colleagues prop me up, they challenge me, and they keep me honest. Without that support, I just couldn't do my job. This experience is not only from my own ten years in the industry but also from the many people who give back daily by posting to blogs. Their contributions allow me to simply search on Google and find my answers right then and there. Without this collective knowledge and these great tools—those that others have built and been generous enough to place in the public domain—I wouldn't be able to do my job. These are the table stakes. With these things, I can be a good developer and get my job done.

00:01:04.159 However, I would suggest that throughout my life and career, everything that has truly mattered has had at least some element of ridiculousness to it. "Ridiculous" is one of my favorite words, and it defines who I am as a person. For instance, I am currently speaking in front of 250 humans, which I find to be rather ridiculous. It can be a nerve-wracking and uncomfortable experience since I've never done this before. If you haven’t done it either, I would highly recommend it because, when I look back on my life, these are the moments that matter.

00:01:39.360 Let me tell you a small story. My dad once bought me a cheap airline ticket to visit him in Tennessee while I was going to school at Penn State. I mention it was a cheap ticket because we had to go through Detroit to reach Tennessee, which is quite ridiculous. On the way back, five people couldn't board the plane due to overbooking. That's another element of ridiculousness. Out of the five of us who were unable to get on, one was a girl from Taiwan who was beginning her first day in the United States, and she later became my wife, seven years my senior.

00:02:21.760 Some of you might be thinking, "I'm already good at being ridiculous with my family," and I can certainly attest to that with my mom. I also believe I'm good at being ridiculous with my friends. For instance, Jay was saving us some seats at Ignite Boulder the other night. I hope that many of you, as developers, are also good at being ridiculous with your colleagues. In fact, that’s a baked potato mouse!

00:03:12.159 But I would like to suggest that everyone be more ridiculous with your code. Take Test-Driven Development (TDD) for example; I find it kind of ridiculous that we’re encouraged to do the least possible thing that could work. However, this is what makes it exciting to find out what the least possible thing is that can make your code function. Sometimes, that might be as simple as having a method that just returns true. Given other design parameters and business needs, this may initially seem ridiculous, but it’s not so ridiculous if it still accomplishes what we need.

00:03:37.919 I’d like to suggest that by being more ridiculous—by doing ridiculous things—we can uncover what might not work; it’s a bit like Mike’s idea about how to grow developers. I love that. I encourage all of you to start using the word "ridiculous" as a compliment to one another. Let’s all strive to be more ridiculous and test the boundaries of what is safe and what works for us so that we can expand those boundaries.

00:05:07.520 Thanks! That's my time. Thank you.