RubyConf 2018 starts tomorrow, and just like I did with RailsConf, I’m very belatedly going to share some highlights from RubyConf 2017, which was in New Orleans last November. It was my first time attending RubyConf, and what struck me the most was the really strong sense of community. Here’s what one first-time attendee had to say:
…This conference was so incredibly worth it. I learned about sweet gems, cool projects, and job opportunities. But more importantly, I met SO MANY totally epic and amazing individuals that even after only three short days I happily now consider friends. I cannot wait to follow their coding lives and journeys in the years to come. I am confident that so many of them are going to do great and groundbreaking things. Plus, I cannot WAIT for my next RubyConf.
That’s from the post 31 thoughts I had while attending my first #RubyConf as an Opportunity Scholar. RubyConf’s Opportunity Scholar program provides financial support for folks who wouldn’t be able to attend otherwise, and are getting started with Ruby. The Scholars are then each matched with a Guide – experienced people who can help them navigate the conference, and make connections for professional development and job opportunities. I applied to be a Guide for this year’s RubyConf and I was selected – I’m looking forward to it!
RubyConf has three tracks of talks, so it’s not possible to attend them all, but here are the ones that were my favorites, including links to the videos for each of them:
RailsConf 2018 starts in exactly one month, and I’m looking forward to it! This means I should probably get around to saying something about RailsConf 2017. The video above is cued to start at the beginning of a lightning talk I gave. The title was “Why Do Planes Crash? Lessons for Junior and Senior Developers.” Analyses of plane crashes show planes actually crash more often when the senior pilot is in the flying seat, often because junior pilots are reticent to speak up when they see problems, while senior pilots don’t hesitate to do so when the junior pilot is flying. There are some great lessons developers can apply from this for how to do mentoring and pair programming.
The lightning talks were at the end of the 2nd day, and I made a last minute decision that morning to sign up and put a talk together. I’ve given a number of conference talks before, but never to a crowd this big, and never with so little time to prepare. Then when it was time to give the talk, there was a technical issue that prevented me from seeing my notes, so I had to wing it. Under the circumstances I think it still turned out ok. Here are my slides (they’re also embedded below) and some tweets about the talk: