Newbies on Rails & meetups

[Jonathan Clarke]

Hey guys and girls,

Just wondering about the state of the whole newbie on rails approach that's happening over in Ireland right now.  There has so much hype about Rails the past number of years I'm wondering if we are not tapping into the realms of junior developers who wish to jump ship.  Perhaps presentations on introduction to ruby / rails, cucumber, rspec, haml/sass would be advantageous for those who want to dip their toes into the language?

Thoughts on this for the next meetup? Try and start the new year with a bang with a lot of new blood attending.

Can someone also post the date of the next meetup in Dublin / location and time.

Also, because Dublin just had their meetup today, what are of the country is up next? Cork / Galway / Belfast?

Jonathan

[Mick]

I am procrastinating waaay too much tonight.

On Dec 16, 11:31 pm, Jonathan Clarke <clarke.jonat...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hey guys and girls,
>
> Just wondering about the state of the whole newbie on rails approach that's
> happening over in Ireland right now.  There has so much hype about Rails the
> past number of years I'm wondering if we are not tapping into the realms of
> junior developers who wish to jump ship.  Perhaps presentations on
> introduction to ruby / rails, cucumber, rspec, haml/sass would be
> advantageous for those who want to dip their toes into the language?

While I'm quite familiar with Ruby itself, I find myself to be a bit
of a newbie with Rails sometimes (even though I worked with it for 3
months in Amazon :o ). I wouldn't mind having a talk on the Rails
ideas, and methods. These can be quite confusing sometime. Maybe have
some slides made available off the RubyIreland webpage. Some of the
stuff mentioned above I haven't even heard of...

I could probably get some interest from people in college on a talk on
Ruby/Rails. Particularly from Redbrick, the NS in college. I'd
volunteer, but I only know enough to make a fool out of myself.

Mick

[hopeless]

Re... other areas: Myself and Paul Nelligan met up yesterday to
discuss a ruby user group in Cork. We'll kick it off in the new year.

Re. attracting newbies... I'm of the opinion that formal presentations
aren't the best way to go. My idea (for Cork, at least) would be to
provide a regular time & place where anyone can turn up and one of the
'regulars' would talk to them about Rails, walk them through an
example app etc. If they're interested, we could do a live-coding of a
basic app (like a todo list, notebook, blog etc) or help setup them up/
get started on their own idea. Presentations and tutorials can be
found anywhere on the net, but a real live Rails hacker to walk you
through an app? That'll be found at your nearest meetup!

Jamie

On Dec 16, 11:31 pm, Jonathan Clarke <clarke.jonat...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[Paul Nelligan]

Sounds good to me :)

We'll be posting a meeting time and place in January - we're thinking of the last Friday of every month for a meetup.  We'll also be in touch with it@cork and other organisations (possibly colleges etc.) to gain further exposure.
 
The idea is that it will bring Ruby developers together with those who are interested in knowing more about Ruby and Rails.  So it's for people with experience and newbies alike.

Jamie described it yesterday as a support group for people who code in Ruby.  So Ruby-holics anonymous :)

cheers

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[Declan McGrath]

On Wednesday 16 December 2009 23:39:40 Mick wrote:
> I am procrastinating waaay too much tonight.
>
> On Dec 16, 11:31 pm, Jonathan Clarke <clarke.jonat...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Hey guys and girls,
> >
> > Just wondering about the state of the whole newbie on rails approach that's
> > happening over in Ireland right now.

I've ran a Ruby Lesson on Monday nights over the last month or so and that seemed to be a useful for to get people into both the Ruby and Rails side of things. I agree in part with hopless's suggestion that presentations aren't always the right way to go. It's definately more fun co-coding with someone who knows what they're doing.

> Some of the
> stuff mentioned above I haven't even heard of...
>
> I could probably get some interest from people in college on a talk on
> Ruby/Rails. Particularly from Redbrick, the NS in college. I'd
> volunteer, but I only know enough to make a fool out of myself.
>
> Mick

However, presentations are a good way to have a 'headline' act to attract people in. As Mick said, it would probably be easier to get a group of students to come in if there was a talk to ease people into it. So maybe it would be good to have a meetup that kicked off with a RoR presentation overview (more Ruby than Rails) and then split off into a hands on sessions.

That said, at the same tine such a topic wouldn't overly excite old hands at Ruby so we could also run a code sprint in a separate room in Trinity Capital or even in the lobby. Or even just a drink...

> While I'm quite familiar with Ruby itself, I find myself to be a bit
> of a newbie with Rails sometimes (even though I worked with it for 3
> months in Amazon :o ). I wouldn't mind having a talk on the Rails
> ideas, and methods. These can be quite confusing sometime. Maybe have
> some slides made available off the RubyIreland webpage.

I don't currently think that the RI website would be the best place to host a beginners guide to Rails. One thing is that there are a lot of good rail's resources already out there and it would be better to be directed towards them. Secondly, Rails changes pretty frequently so there would be a good bit of overhead in keeping them up to date.

But if someone does a Rails beginner presentation then having that available (along with other presentations that have been given in Ruby Ireland) would be fine.

Basically, I don't think that RI should push itself as the beginners website of choice because I don't think that's what the website's focus should be.

> > There has so much hype about Rails the
> > past number of years I'm wondering if we are not tapping into the realms of
> > junior developers who wish to jump ship. Perhaps presentations on
> > introduction to ruby / rails, cucumber, rspec, haml/sass would be
> > advantageous for those who want to dip their toes into the language?

I think the main thing to do is get in touch with the colleges/students. Probably more in terms of just basic Ruby and basic Rails than anything more advanced.

> >
> > Thoughts on this for the next meetup? Try and start the new year with a bang
> > with a lot of new blood attending.
> >
> > Can someone also post the date of the next meetup in Dublin / location and
> > time.
> >
> > Also, because Dublin just had their meetup today, what are of the country is
> > up next? Cork / Galway / Belfast?
> >
> > Jonathan
>

[Richard Conroy]

A few thoughts:

Over the last few weeks there has been a welcome surge of activity on this list. It seems that people want the Ruby Ireland community to exist as something more than just a mailing list. Certainly there are community models out there worth aspiring to (The Seattle and Boston ruby groups come to mind).

If you want to grow a community though you need to be conscious of what makes a community attractive to join. There was an earlier mail that there's ~270 people on the list, but only about 1/10 of them have responded. Organising beginner or entrant level activities definitely sounds like a good start, but to my mind the best way to grow a community is to have regular face to face meetups. Weekly would be ideal, but its beyond our capacity to do this at our level - that takes serious commitment from community leaders. 

I am not being critical of anyone, I am just trying to provoke some thoughts. 

When you are trying to grow a community it's perception is critical. As a long time lurker I see that the vast majority of the activity on this list here is from people who work professionally in Ruby. The announce yourself thread showed that there are some people out there with serious laurels to their name, which shows that Ruby is being used for real work here. However that can be quite intimidating for a beginner - to join a group where their level of knowledge is far below the rest. A lot of people on the list may be wishing to learn, others might be looking to break into a career in Ruby (and network with people there) and there's probably a few people who have had it a bit rough in the economy and are trying to skill up in something lucrative like Ruby or Rails. You might have a few non-Ruby lurkers too, but who work in related areas like web testing (selenium), pure web design or some python people, who are looking to cross skill, network or socialise in related fields. 

But everything starts small. I am just wondering where everyone wants to take this. Building a community takes commitment, and a lot of that has to come from the more active members (i.e. the 20+ people who have been very active on this list to date!). That might be too much to ask of people. 

I guess what I am trying to say here is that reaching out to people who are not ruby professionals takes some different strategies. Any thoughts?

regards,

Richard.

[Jonathan Clarke]

Weekly meetings with ongoing interesting content is extremely difficult for any community to maintain.  I'd recommend each area has regular defined monthly meetups.  It would be a good idea to hold these in the same location month after month to avoid any confusion.

I'd love to introduce as many new people into the ruby community as possible, not only by having talks on the latest and greatest in the ruby world, hacking sessions which was recommended earlier for beginners but also very quick presentations (5 mins) on what people are working on themselves (regardless of the language, does not have to always have a ruby focus.).

Many of the people reading this list work in software houses, often with people (designers/J2EE devs / PHP) who could have an interest in learning / up-skilling.  Ask them to come along, this would be a great way to get them interested and learning.

As you said above, 

"Building a community takes commitment, and a lot of that has to come from the more active members (i.e. the 20+ people who have been very active on this list to date!). That might be too much to ask of people. "

The community is what people make of it. If they want to put in a commitment that's great, if not, then thats fine.  As long as people show an interest in helping the community then it will continue to prosper.  We cannot always rely on the 20+ people reading this thread right now, many are busy, working / studying on other things. New blood is needed for this community to survive. 

Jonathan

[Richard Conroy]

On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 10:04 PM, Jonathan Clarke <clarke....@gmail.com> wrote:

Weekly meetings with ongoing interesting content is extremely difficult for any community to maintain.  I'd recommend each area has regular defined monthly meetups.  It would be a good idea to hold these in the same location month after month to avoid any confusion.

I have only ever seen it work in College, or with sporting activities. Hence 'ideal'. But these communities flourish and grow. 

 

I'd love to introduce as many new people into the ruby community as possible, not only by having talks on the latest and greatest in the ruby world, hacking sessions which was recommended earlier for beginners but also very quick presentations (5 mins) on what people are working on themselves (regardless of the language, does not have to always have a ruby focus.).

Many of the people reading this list work in software houses, often with people (designers/J2EE devs / PHP) who could have an interest in learning / up-skilling.  Ask them to come along, this would be a great way to get them interested and learning.

As you said above, 

"Building a community takes commitment, and a lot of that has to come from the more active members (i.e. the 20+ people who have been very active on this list to date!). That might be too much to ask of people. "

The community is what people make of it. If they want to put in a commitment that's great, if not, then thats fine.  As long as people show an interest in helping the community then it will continue to prosper.  We cannot always rely on the 20+ people reading this thread right now, many are busy, working / studying on other things. New blood is needed for this community to survive. 

We are pretty much in agreement on the same things. My concern is that a community doesn't prosper until it reaches a critical mass. Growing a community involves burning through a limited amount of volunteer time afforded by the core members, until the membership and activity becomes sustainable (i.e. new members become active participants, and less is demanded of the original community volunteers). If you don't hit that critical mass, community participation falls back to its most sustainable state, which in most cases is 'whatever it was doing before'.

The big issue is breaking down barriers to engagement. This is actually more of a marketing thing. If the perceived value of the community is high, people are more likely to commit their time and engage with it. This becomes especially more important if someones time is at a premium (long travel to meets, or have to choose between other engagements). You have to recognise the reasons that people would be interested in being part of a ruby community, but choose not to be. Addressing those issues can grow a community better than through sheer effort.

Just a few wee thoughts. I would love the community to build and be stronger. There is something really cool about the language that is very empowering. When you teach your basic understanding to complete beginners, and see them accomplish non-trivial tasks is really empowering. You really want to share the experience to a wider audience.

--
http://richardconroy.blogspot.com