Beau Harrington
Lightning Talks
#lightning-talks
#ruby-on-rails
#open-source
#community
#developer-experience-dx
#internship-programs
Summarized using AI
Lightning Talks
by Nick Quaranto, Dr. Nic Williams, Chris Morris, Jon McCartie, Bryan Helmkamp, Miles Forrest, Andrew Harvey, Benjamin Fleischer, Adam Cuppy, Hector Miguel Rodriguez Muñiz, Mario Chavez, Mike Virata-Stone, rking, Nathan Ladd, Dylan Lacey, JC Grubbs, Jeremy Green, Ron Evans, Eoin Coffey, Doug Smith, Andrew Cantino, Tanin Na Nakorn, Philippe Creux, Alex Sharp, Beau Harrington, Yoshiori Shoji, Winfred Nadeau, David Padilla, and Gabe ScholzSummary of Lightning Talks at RailsConf 2013
The video features a series of lightning talks delivered by various speakers at RailsConf 2013, focusing on programming, community building, and personal development within the tech industry. The following key points were discussed across multiple talks:
Open Hack Concept: Nick Quaranto shared his experience with Open Hack, emphasizing the importance of informal coding events to foster community and productivity. He introduced a formula for success—"Pizza + Beer = Code"—and outlined essential rules for organizing hack fests to encourage participation and collaboration. He reported that Open Hack events have sprouted in over 60 cities worldwide.
Cloud Foundry and Technical Intimidation: Another speaker discussed the challenges of using Cloud Foundry and the importance of simplifying complex processes. They introduced tools that streamline the setup of Cloud Foundry, making it accessible for developers. A larger theme raised was the concept of 'Technical Intimidation', where tech professionals feel overwhelmed by industry jargon and trends—urging the community to embrace a culture of learning and support.
Finding Purpose in Work: Jon McCartie spoke about the quest for purpose in programming careers, reflecting on a personal journey that led him to work in tech for a Christian church. He encouraged others to identify what is meaningful to them, whether it be family, passion projects, or community involvement. He highlighted the importance of understanding the value of one's work and finding fulfillment beyond professional achievements.
Internationalization in Rails: Tanana Nakorn presented a gem he developed for Rails that allows for easy inline editing of text elements on websites, addressing common frustrations for team members who manage content.
Service Objects Methodology: David detailed the concept of service objects—breaking down business logic into singular, reusable units within applications. He focused on the benefits of this approach in software development, particularly in improving code organization and facilitating testing.
Importance of Code Testing and Community Learning: The closing talks reiterated the challenges developers face and the collective responsibility to create supportive environments for learning and growth. Speakers encouraged a community-centered approach where sharing knowledge and resources can help alleviate pressure and build confidence among developers, especially newcomers.
Conclusion
The lightning talks at RailsConf 2013 provide rich insights into community efforts, purpose in programming, and approaches to mastering technology while fostering collaboration. The speakers advocated for a supportive network within the tech community, urging developers to recognize the importance of sharing knowledge and simplifying complex processes to enhance productivity and fulfillment in their work.
00:00:15.980
Oh cool, that works! Hi, hi everybody, wake up! I'm Nick.
00:00:20.990
Oh hey, those are my slides too! I'm Nick, and you can find me on Twitter as @nick.
00:00:28.550
I'm going to talk about Open Hack. I really love programming. Programming is my favorite thing to do ever.
00:00:34.640
When I program, I feel like this kid banging my hammer, and all of a sudden, there's stuff flying out of my machine.
00:00:41.090
This is something I really love. One of the things I discovered while living in Boston is a simple formula: Pizza + Beer = Code.
00:00:47.990
If you provide food and drinks, it somehow creates productivity. We used to have Boston RB hack fests, and this formula worked.
00:01:01.190
This is how rubygems.org started, along with a bunch of other projects.
00:01:07.670
I wanted a way to repeat that hack fest feeling after moving to Buffalo, New York.
00:01:13.909
I wrote down some rules for doing hack fests, which I call Open Hack, and I'm going to share those with you.
00:01:20.149
So how does it work? First, someone must organize it. This is me in Buffalo.
00:01:30.350
One person is the point of contact.
00:01:36.139
To keep the event organized, they arrange intros, which are super important.
00:01:41.780
The intros build connections because when you enter a room of nerds coding, you might feel uncertain about how to introduce yourself.
00:01:48.049
You should aim to do these intros every night since they help bring new people into the group.
00:01:55.069
When you enter the room, just say who you are and what you are working on.
00:02:00.380
It's okay to work alone, but you can also ask for help and pair with someone.
00:02:07.590
You can even socialize while working.
00:02:14.970
Most sessions wrap up after two hours, and other groups have tried longer sessions, but I get sleepy.
00:02:21.750
Sponsors help a lot too. For instance, we have 37 Signals and Engine Yard helping out the Buffalo group.
00:02:27.480
It's usually less than a hundred bucks to pay for pizza and maybe some beer, which helps a lot.
00:02:32.849
We run this every two to three weeks in Buffalo.
00:02:43.670
This has been a successful endeavor, and I discovered several local groups in Boise, Logan, Tulsa, Albuquerque, San Francisco, and Santa Barbara.
00:02:48.900
We are currently in over 60 cities, and I aim to reach 100 by the end of the year.
00:02:55.410
If you're interested in organizing, that would be fantastic.
00:03:04.690
There are groups on the East Coast, plenty in Europe, and some even in Asia.
00:03:12.020
It's mind-blowing how many groups there are just started from a few simple rules I wrote down, along with some funny gifts.
00:03:18.000
If you're interested, please visit openhack.github.io.
00:03:28.700
Okay, I was lying. I actually have announcements for other groups on Twitter.
00:03:34.830
I'm throwing a Ruby conference along with other people from the Western Europe Ruby group in Buffalo, New York.
00:03:40.470
It's happening September 20th and 21st at nickelcityruby.com. Thank you!
00:03:52.910
Alright, I'm a professional, I can wait for my turn. There are 42 speakers and only six bowls of water.
00:04:10.370
Anyway, I'm a big fan of what Heroku built, and unfortunately, I feel like a sad panda because we can't use that.
00:04:17.550
So I became really interested in Cloud Foundry.
00:04:24.690
I work at a company called Stark and Wayne, which I have been informed is the first and only company with two fictional founders.
00:04:29.970
Board meetings are fun because I'm basically talking to myself.
00:04:36.000
But the good news is that soon I will not be alone anymore.
00:04:43.730
You know, I'm getting my fancy O-1 visa.
00:04:50.340
For Americans who perhaps don't need visas, that's the alien of extraordinary ability.
00:04:56.010
So, fancy dress day will involve pants on the outside, and it's going to be great.
00:05:10.370
As a consultant, I worked with a large enterprise company that wanted to adopt agile methodologies.
00:05:20.600
I felt really bad for people who've tried to do agile without proper support.
00:05:27.860
Let me know how many careers have been destroyed by those who say, 'Yes, let's do Agile' and leave it at that.
00:05:34.260
We have a hard rule around wanting everything in our internal private clouds across the globe, but that contradicts my belief.
00:05:44.340
Everyone should have nice things, just because we work in cubicles doesn’t mean we can't enjoy nice setups.
00:05:50.340
Fortunately, there is Cloud Foundry, but it isn't necessarily easy to run on your own.
00:05:57.770
At my workplace, we outsourced it to a company called tier 3, which set it up.
00:06:05.310
One of my pet peeves in the universe is companies claiming to be open source but leaving the execution to the reader.
00:06:11.130
It's been a personal project to make running Cloud Foundry as easy as possible.
00:06:16.960
I've reduced it to running two tools and five commands, and that's exciting.
00:06:26.120
Using Bosch Bootstrap and Bosch Cloud Foundry, I won’t go into details about them.
00:06:34.520
Instead, I just want to show you the commands to run.
00:06:41.930
You can install a gem called Bosch Bootstrap.
00:06:47.460
Then, you run the next command.
00:06:53.440
If you follow along, you can execute the command that follows.
00:06:58.940
Next, you run that command.
00:07:05.160
Lastly, you run the other commands that I haven't mentioned.
00:07:11.340
The commands are reasonably interactive and will ask you questions.
00:07:18.460
For example, they'll inquire about your Amazon credentials.
00:07:25.910
If you've used fog, it actually finds your credentials and uses them.
00:07:32.220
At some point, it will ask you about DNS and other things.
00:07:41.250
The reason I built this was because I grew tired of writing documentation, so I made a tool to simplify the process.
00:07:48.300
What do you get from this tool? You get boxes—Squares.
00:07:56.520
If you ever wondered what Amazon's boxes look like, they are square.
00:08:02.430
Running your own Cloud Foundry for 30 cents an hour is pretty cool.
00:08:08.280
You might want to run services, like where the Dinos run, so to speak.
00:08:14.750
It does all of this smoothly.
00:08:20.600
The setup typically takes about three hours, so we won’t do a demo right now.
00:08:27.960
A show of hands: who hates show of hands at conferences?
00:08:35.740
This talk is dedicated to all of you.
00:08:39.830
You may have heard of technical debt, but I'm here to speak about 'Technical Intimidation'.
00:08:45.120
Do you know Rails? Do you know all of Rails?
00:08:54.400
Do you know why we like the word 'Active' so much?
00:09:01.120
Can you program concurrently? Can you asynchronously stream hypermedia?
00:09:09.970
I don't really know what that means, but Google image can help.
00:09:17.500
Can you inject SQL into a cannoli?
00:09:25.660
Do you know how to get closure with your monads?
00:09:31.180
I don't really know what that implies either, but I suspect it has something to do with futility.
00:09:38.090
Does anyone understand what this is in JavaScript?
00:09:45.010
Do you know that they are actually putting JavaScript on servers these days?
00:09:51.170
It reminds me—I have a Kickstarter for hosting Oracle on my browser.
00:09:58.020
So if you've got any loose change…
00:10:03.520
Does anybody know what Adam Keys is talking about here?
00:10:08.510
If you take out all the buzzwords from that post, all you're left with is ASCII art of a troll face.
00:10:17.360
All of these points were taken from recent Ruby and JavaScript weekly news editions.
00:10:23.910
Does anyone here know all of this? If you said yes, you're lying.
00:10:31.030
Because I made that last one up, but seriously.
00:10:45.850
Recently, a prominent member of our industry posted a blog saying he was reluctant to ask a question.
00:10:54.880
He didn't want to seem out of touch.
00:11:00.400
I can relate to that, so can Kent Beck.
00:11:06.180
Sometimes it's all just technology, and we find ourselves staring at it, feeling overwhelmed.
00:11:12.750
And that leaves us with a feeling of shame.
00:11:18.500
Two traits are common among people: adaptability and shame.
00:11:24.220
When you combine these, you get hoarders.
00:11:27.739
This illustrates how powerful shame can be in our lives.
00:11:37.330
While it may not always play out so visibly for all of us, shame can shape our thoughts and feelings.
00:11:44.620
Jerry Weinberg was once asked what the most important thing for a programmer is when starting a new project.
00:11:51.539
He answered that each should ensure they are physically fit without nagging psychological problems.
00:11:58.159
These messages are nagging psychological problems.
00:12:06.410
As we know, shame robs our perspective and convinces us that we’re stuck.
00:12:13.640
Software is hard; Steve McConnell paraphrased Dykstra, saying computing is the only profession where one mind spans intellectual distances of nine orders of magnitude.
00:12:23.950
Several known figures in programming have voiced their decisions on critical issues, underscoring the difficulty of good design.
00:12:30.950
The more closely you look at a feature, the more rough edges you will find.
00:12:36.830
The sane approach is to iterate until it’s good enough and then move on.
00:12:43.240
According to NPR, professionals sometimes struggle to spot problems they are trained to find.
00:12:50.410
A whopping 83% of radiologists fail to see the gorilla in the image, while the legendary Garry Kasparov once blundered away his queen.
00:12:58.590
So if I'm looking at two thousandth of a percent of my codebase at any time, cut me some slack.
00:13:06.700
But what about all those things? Look, you can't learn everything, and it doesn't matter, at least not to people like Martin Fowler.
00:13:13.650
Given someone with broad design skills and someone who knows your platform well, Martin will take the one with broader design skills.
00:13:20.620
So what about everyone else who does seem to know everything?
00:13:26.780
The trick is, don't be intimidated; learn from them!
00:13:33.650
Pat Metheny advises young musicians to always be the least skilled person in the band.
00:13:40.580
If you're the best player, find a different band.
00:13:46.660
To summarize: we should do a much better job if we appreciate how difficult programming is.
00:13:53.320
Stick to modest and elegant programming languages and respect the limitations of the human mind.
00:14:00.650
Lastly, one great recommendation is to find Brandi Brown's TED talks on the topic of shame.
00:14:06.530
This is me on the web, peace out.
00:14:19.180
Hi everybody! My name is Jon McCartie.
00:14:25.130
I am a Ruby developer at Life Church TV, which is a church in Oklahoma City.
00:14:35.310
You can find me on the web at @JayMcCartie.
00:14:42.520
At some point in your programming career, you’ll probably ask yourself, ‘What’s the point?’
00:14:51.730
For me, this revelation came in 2010 when I was working in a B2B start-up in San Francisco.
00:15:04.230
I remember one day on the BART train between the East Bay and San Francisco, I asked myself that crucial question.
00:15:11.150
It was a question that profoundly shifted my perspective on what I valued.
00:15:18.050
What matters to me? My family? Money? Notoriety? Or something else?
00:15:27.350
It's a good question worth reflecting on.
00:15:34.700
Each of us has an intrinsic need to feel that our work matters and that we belong.
00:15:45.330
Embedded research shows that 75% of young people aged 25 to 30 give money to causes.
00:15:51.430
Sixty-three percent say they give their time to volunteer, revealing a shift from previous generations.
00:15:59.150
This suggests we are coming to terms with finding purpose in our work.
00:16:05.990
So what is my purpose?
00:16:12.750
When I was in San Francisco, a friend told me about a church in Oklahoma City.
00:16:18.810
It's a Christian church that uses technology to reach people and change lives.
00:16:27.340
We build software for these churches and give it away for free.
00:16:34.830
For instance, we developed the YouVersion Bible app with 90 million installs to date.
00:16:41.610
That became my purpose.
00:16:46.710
My challenge to you is to discover your purpose.
00:16:54.310
What motivates you and brings you fulfillment?
00:17:01.930
The best place to start is by looking at your values.
00:17:08.330
Identify what is really important to you.
00:17:15.290
Prioritize those values.
00:17:23.680
If you are a manager, make sure your developers understand why you’re doing what you do.
00:17:29.350
Even if the project isn’t important overall, you need to communicate its value.
00:17:37.900
Developers, if you don’t have a supportive manager find purpose.
00:17:42.950
Even if your work isn’t fulfilling, understand the impact you’re making.
00:17:50.780
For example, the feature you're working on might save someone time.
00:17:56.570
Hold on to that, treasure it.
00:18:03.650
If none of these projects fulfill you, consider what you can do outside your work.
00:18:09.300
You have valuable skills.
00:18:16.050
Work with a nonprofit or find ways to give back to the community.
00:18:24.710
Your code today might not last, but the impact you create can last a lifetime.
00:18:36.630
Hi, my name is Tanana Nakorn.
00:18:41.080
Today, I would like to talk about the internationalization of Rails.
00:18:47.310
I ran into a problem a while back with copying text on a website.
00:18:52.840
For instance, if you have a button labeled ‘Sale’ and your friend from marketing wants to change it.
00:18:58.680
They might want to change it to ‘Create’ first, and then a few days later to ‘Save.’
00:19:05.390
This tedious process can be cumbersome and frustrating.
00:19:12.420
Thus, I built a gem that lets you inline edit these elements on your website.
00:19:20.240
Now, I’ll provide a demo.
00:19:26.110
On the website, clicking on a label allows you to edit it.
00:19:31.080
It also works for attributes.
00:19:37.410
The edits can be saved.
00:19:42.710
At the end, you can deactivate the edit mode.
00:19:48.190
This approach empowers other team members to directly manipulate the website.
00:19:54.680
This leads to greater happiness for everyone involved.
00:19:59.440
You can easily include this JavaScript file when edit mode is enabled.
00:20:05.140
In your Rails application, simply replace the normal functions.
00:20:11.190
You can find out more about the gem at the URL here.
00:20:17.020
My Twitter is @winfred.
00:20:29.680
Now I want to share a project I've been working on.
00:20:34.800
Good evening, my name is David.
00:20:42.240
Let’s discuss Service Objects.
00:20:49.740
Over the years, I’ve aimed to extract as much business logic as I can.
00:20:53.920
This leads me to develop a service object.
00:21:01.560
Each service only performs one action.
00:21:08.880
Currently, they're in the app/services directory.
00:21:16.330
The class name starts with a verb, e.g., ‘UserService’.
00:21:24.950
It has a single method, and I can pass arguments to it.
00:21:31.490
Using dependency injection helps with testing.
00:21:38.120
I can validate if the method fails.
00:21:43.580
When testing, I make sure the user should not be able to save.
00:21:49.510
This method approach complements lambdas.
00:21:55.090
We still gain benefits from our original design.
00:22:01.940
Lastly, a service just shows how we can efficiently use professionalism.
00:22:09.560
You can spot reusable code, and it's good for expanding development.
00:22:17.100
This approach generates considerable flexibility in your code.
00:22:25.400
That's it, so I'd appreciate any advice on it.
00:22:34.750
Thank you, everyone. I would love your feedback.
00:22:40.430
Hello everyone, I'm gonna talk about a few things.
00:22:44.680
My name is David, and I am from a work where I build developer tools.
00:22:52.420
Let me start with an overview of my work.
00:22:59.550
It's an internship project enhancing awareness.
00:23:05.150
Let’s dive right into a discussion about code testing.
00:23:14.200
When testing your code, the goal is to ensure it works.
00:23:21.150
This is crucial for maintaining user satisfaction.
00:23:29.320
So testing helps raise confidence in the product, ultimately lowering lead times.
00:23:35.530
Sorry everyone, this is the first time I've spoken publicly.
00:23:46.040
It's a nerve-wracking experience but necessary for our developers.
00:23:56.000
Thank you, everyone. I appreciate the support.
00:24:02.000
Thank you for your attention, everyone.
00:24:07.530
This conference has been illuminating.
00:24:10.430
There’s so much to learn in our industry.
00:24:15.180
With new tech emerging, it’s an exciting time.
Explore all talks recorded at RailsConf 2013
+89