Ruby on Rails
Lightning Talks
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.
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Oh cool, that works! Hi, hi everybody, wake up! I'm Nick.
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Oh hey, those are my slides too! I'm Nick, and you can find me on Twitter as @nick.
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I'm going to talk about Open Hack. I really love programming. Programming is my favorite thing to do ever.
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When I program, I feel like this kid banging my hammer, and all of a sudden, there's stuff flying out of my machine.
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This is something I really love. One of the things I discovered while living in Boston is a simple formula: Pizza + Beer = Code.
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If you provide food and drinks, it somehow creates productivity. We used to have Boston RB hack fests, and this formula worked.
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This is how rubygems.org started, along with a bunch of other projects.
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I wanted a way to repeat that hack fest feeling after moving to Buffalo, New York.
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I wrote down some rules for doing hack fests, which I call Open Hack, and I'm going to share those with you.
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So how does it work? First, someone must organize it. This is me in Buffalo.
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One person is the point of contact.
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To keep the event organized, they arrange intros, which are super important.
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The intros build connections because when you enter a room of nerds coding, you might feel uncertain about how to introduce yourself.
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You should aim to do these intros every night since they help bring new people into the group.
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When you enter the room, just say who you are and what you are working on.
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It's okay to work alone, but you can also ask for help and pair with someone.
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You can even socialize while working.
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Most sessions wrap up after two hours, and other groups have tried longer sessions, but I get sleepy.
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Sponsors help a lot too. For instance, we have 37 Signals and Engine Yard helping out the Buffalo group.
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It's usually less than a hundred bucks to pay for pizza and maybe some beer, which helps a lot.
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We run this every two to three weeks in Buffalo.
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This has been a successful endeavor, and I discovered several local groups in Boise, Logan, Tulsa, Albuquerque, San Francisco, and Santa Barbara.
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We are currently in over 60 cities, and I aim to reach 100 by the end of the year.
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If you're interested in organizing, that would be fantastic.
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There are groups on the East Coast, plenty in Europe, and some even in Asia.
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It's mind-blowing how many groups there are just started from a few simple rules I wrote down, along with some funny gifts.
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If you're interested, please visit openhack.github.io.
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Okay, I was lying. I actually have announcements for other groups on Twitter.
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I'm throwing a Ruby conference along with other people from the Western Europe Ruby group in Buffalo, New York.
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It's happening September 20th and 21st at nickelcityruby.com. Thank you!
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Alright, I'm a professional, I can wait for my turn. There are 42 speakers and only six bowls of water.
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Anyway, I'm a big fan of what Heroku built, and unfortunately, I feel like a sad panda because we can't use that.
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So I became really interested in Cloud Foundry.
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I work at a company called Stark and Wayne, which I have been informed is the first and only company with two fictional founders.
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Board meetings are fun because I'm basically talking to myself.
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But the good news is that soon I will not be alone anymore.
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You know, I'm getting my fancy O-1 visa.
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For Americans who perhaps don't need visas, that's the alien of extraordinary ability.
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So, fancy dress day will involve pants on the outside, and it's going to be great.
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As a consultant, I worked with a large enterprise company that wanted to adopt agile methodologies.
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I felt really bad for people who've tried to do agile without proper support.
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Let me know how many careers have been destroyed by those who say, 'Yes, let's do Agile' and leave it at that.
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We have a hard rule around wanting everything in our internal private clouds across the globe, but that contradicts my belief.
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Everyone should have nice things, just because we work in cubicles doesn’t mean we can't enjoy nice setups.
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Fortunately, there is Cloud Foundry, but it isn't necessarily easy to run on your own.
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At my workplace, we outsourced it to a company called tier 3, which set it up.
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One of my pet peeves in the universe is companies claiming to be open source but leaving the execution to the reader.
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It's been a personal project to make running Cloud Foundry as easy as possible.
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I've reduced it to running two tools and five commands, and that's exciting.
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Using Bosch Bootstrap and Bosch Cloud Foundry, I won’t go into details about them.
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Instead, I just want to show you the commands to run.
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You can install a gem called Bosch Bootstrap.
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Then, you run the next command.
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If you follow along, you can execute the command that follows.
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Next, you run that command.
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Lastly, you run the other commands that I haven't mentioned.
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The commands are reasonably interactive and will ask you questions.
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For example, they'll inquire about your Amazon credentials.
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If you've used fog, it actually finds your credentials and uses them.
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At some point, it will ask you about DNS and other things.
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The reason I built this was because I grew tired of writing documentation, so I made a tool to simplify the process.
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What do you get from this tool? You get boxes—Squares.
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If you ever wondered what Amazon's boxes look like, they are square.
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Running your own Cloud Foundry for 30 cents an hour is pretty cool.
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You might want to run services, like where the Dinos run, so to speak.
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It does all of this smoothly.
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The setup typically takes about three hours, so we won’t do a demo right now.
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A show of hands: who hates show of hands at conferences?
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This talk is dedicated to all of you.
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You may have heard of technical debt, but I'm here to speak about 'Technical Intimidation'.
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Do you know Rails? Do you know all of Rails?
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Do you know why we like the word 'Active' so much?
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Can you program concurrently? Can you asynchronously stream hypermedia?
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I don't really know what that means, but Google image can help.
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Can you inject SQL into a cannoli?
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Do you know how to get closure with your monads?
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I don't really know what that implies either, but I suspect it has something to do with futility.
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Does anyone understand what this is in JavaScript?
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Do you know that they are actually putting JavaScript on servers these days?
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It reminds me—I have a Kickstarter for hosting Oracle on my browser.
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So if you've got any loose change…
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Does anybody know what Adam Keys is talking about here?
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If you take out all the buzzwords from that post, all you're left with is ASCII art of a troll face.
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All of these points were taken from recent Ruby and JavaScript weekly news editions.
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Does anyone here know all of this? If you said yes, you're lying.
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Because I made that last one up, but seriously.
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Recently, a prominent member of our industry posted a blog saying he was reluctant to ask a question.
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He didn't want to seem out of touch.
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I can relate to that, so can Kent Beck.
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Sometimes it's all just technology, and we find ourselves staring at it, feeling overwhelmed.
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And that leaves us with a feeling of shame.
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Two traits are common among people: adaptability and shame.
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When you combine these, you get hoarders.
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This illustrates how powerful shame can be in our lives.
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While it may not always play out so visibly for all of us, shame can shape our thoughts and feelings.
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Jerry Weinberg was once asked what the most important thing for a programmer is when starting a new project.
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He answered that each should ensure they are physically fit without nagging psychological problems.
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These messages are nagging psychological problems.
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As we know, shame robs our perspective and convinces us that we’re stuck.
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Software is hard; Steve McConnell paraphrased Dykstra, saying computing is the only profession where one mind spans intellectual distances of nine orders of magnitude.
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Several known figures in programming have voiced their decisions on critical issues, underscoring the difficulty of good design.
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The more closely you look at a feature, the more rough edges you will find.
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The sane approach is to iterate until it’s good enough and then move on.
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According to NPR, professionals sometimes struggle to spot problems they are trained to find.
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A whopping 83% of radiologists fail to see the gorilla in the image, while the legendary Garry Kasparov once blundered away his queen.
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So if I'm looking at two thousandth of a percent of my codebase at any time, cut me some slack.
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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.
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Given someone with broad design skills and someone who knows your platform well, Martin will take the one with broader design skills.
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So what about everyone else who does seem to know everything?
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The trick is, don't be intimidated; learn from them!
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Pat Metheny advises young musicians to always be the least skilled person in the band.
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If you're the best player, find a different band.
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To summarize: we should do a much better job if we appreciate how difficult programming is.
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Stick to modest and elegant programming languages and respect the limitations of the human mind.
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Lastly, one great recommendation is to find Brandi Brown's TED talks on the topic of shame.
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This is me on the web, peace out.
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Hi everybody! My name is Jon McCartie.
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I am a Ruby developer at Life Church TV, which is a church in Oklahoma City.
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You can find me on the web at @JayMcCartie.
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At some point in your programming career, you’ll probably ask yourself, ‘What’s the point?’
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For me, this revelation came in 2010 when I was working in a B2B start-up in San Francisco.
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I remember one day on the BART train between the East Bay and San Francisco, I asked myself that crucial question.
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It was a question that profoundly shifted my perspective on what I valued.
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What matters to me? My family? Money? Notoriety? Or something else?
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It's a good question worth reflecting on.
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Each of us has an intrinsic need to feel that our work matters and that we belong.
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Embedded research shows that 75% of young people aged 25 to 30 give money to causes.
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Sixty-three percent say they give their time to volunteer, revealing a shift from previous generations.
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This suggests we are coming to terms with finding purpose in our work.
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So what is my purpose?
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When I was in San Francisco, a friend told me about a church in Oklahoma City.
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It's a Christian church that uses technology to reach people and change lives.
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We build software for these churches and give it away for free.
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For instance, we developed the YouVersion Bible app with 90 million installs to date.
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That became my purpose.
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My challenge to you is to discover your purpose.
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What motivates you and brings you fulfillment?
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The best place to start is by looking at your values.
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Identify what is really important to you.
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Prioritize those values.
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If you are a manager, make sure your developers understand why you’re doing what you do.
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Even if the project isn’t important overall, you need to communicate its value.
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Developers, if you don’t have a supportive manager find purpose.
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Even if your work isn’t fulfilling, understand the impact you’re making.
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For example, the feature you're working on might save someone time.
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Hold on to that, treasure it.
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If none of these projects fulfill you, consider what you can do outside your work.
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You have valuable skills.
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Work with a nonprofit or find ways to give back to the community.
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Your code today might not last, but the impact you create can last a lifetime.
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Hi, my name is Tanana Nakorn.
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Today, I would like to talk about the internationalization of Rails.
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I ran into a problem a while back with copying text on a website.
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For instance, if you have a button labeled ‘Sale’ and your friend from marketing wants to change it.
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They might want to change it to ‘Create’ first, and then a few days later to ‘Save.’
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This tedious process can be cumbersome and frustrating.
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Thus, I built a gem that lets you inline edit these elements on your website.
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Now, I’ll provide a demo.
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On the website, clicking on a label allows you to edit it.
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It also works for attributes.
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The edits can be saved.
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At the end, you can deactivate the edit mode.
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This approach empowers other team members to directly manipulate the website.
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This leads to greater happiness for everyone involved.
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You can easily include this JavaScript file when edit mode is enabled.
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In your Rails application, simply replace the normal functions.
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You can find out more about the gem at the URL here.
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My Twitter is @winfred.
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Now I want to share a project I've been working on.
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Good evening, my name is David.
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Let’s discuss Service Objects.
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Over the years, I’ve aimed to extract as much business logic as I can.
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This leads me to develop a service object.
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Each service only performs one action.
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Currently, they're in the app/services directory.
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The class name starts with a verb, e.g., ‘UserService’.
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It has a single method, and I can pass arguments to it.
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Using dependency injection helps with testing.
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I can validate if the method fails.
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When testing, I make sure the user should not be able to save.
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This method approach complements lambdas.
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We still gain benefits from our original design.
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Lastly, a service just shows how we can efficiently use professionalism.
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You can spot reusable code, and it's good for expanding development.
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This approach generates considerable flexibility in your code.
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That's it, so I'd appreciate any advice on it.
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Thank you, everyone. I would love your feedback.
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Hello everyone, I'm gonna talk about a few things.
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My name is David, and I am from a work where I build developer tools.
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Let me start with an overview of my work.
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It's an internship project enhancing awareness.
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Let’s dive right into a discussion about code testing.
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When testing your code, the goal is to ensure it works.
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This is crucial for maintaining user satisfaction.
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So testing helps raise confidence in the product, ultimately lowering lead times.
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Sorry everyone, this is the first time I've spoken publicly.
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It's a nerve-wracking experience but necessary for our developers.
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Thank you, everyone. I appreciate the support.
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Thank you for your attention, everyone.
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This conference has been illuminating.
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There’s so much to learn in our industry.
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With new tech emerging, it’s an exciting time.
