Arse-sitting, bullshit and distraction

[Richard Drake]

Final thoughts on whether the 29th should have a session devoted to
discussion, in addition to the eight selected presentations. I realise
it may be too late to affect this but I feel strongly that there
should be such a session, given the good people that can make it to
Ruby Manor. Indeed I feel it would be a considerable waste not to.

(Of course, informal interactions outside sessions are key. I think of
chatting with and eavesdropping on Peter Deustch and Krysten Nygaard
in Oslo in 1988 - and a long conversation with Mark Shuttleworth on
the slow train back from Oxford fifteen years later as examples for
me. But there was an element of fluke in all of those. I'm all for
such happy accidents but the formal agenda should try to optimise such
good stuff where possible.)

The title refers to three things the organisers want to avoid and that
I agree should be avoided. Avoiding distraction is the reason to
discourage use of laptops, in my view. Stern words online and on the
day itself aim to minimise bullshit, particularly in questions - plus
of course Murray's vigilantes meting out violence to those guilty of
ignoring those humane pleas!

Arse-sitting is more difficult to prevent from here on in for ~170 of
so of us. Even so, as I've made clear, I dislike the traditional panel
session at the end of a day like this. I'd prefer just the eight
presentations to merely tacking on that kind of thing - on that I
suspect there's consensus with those setting the final agenda.

What would be interesting to me and I would have thought to anyone
coming to RM would be which other Ruby-related questions, outside the
strict scope of the eight selected talks, are of the most interest to
this sample of ~180 engaged and pretty expert people, especially once
the conference has got the right juices flowing. And if one knew what
the current burning issues were then I'm sure many would be interested
in what a goldfish-style interaction revealed of the thoughts of some
leading UK Rubyists on those matters.

For example, how much interest is there is the question of what the
emergence of CoffeeScript means for Ruby? But that's just an example
question. How does one find out what the biggest such issues are?
That's easy enough to do and would surely reduce the arse-sitting on
the day. How many others would be interested in why Ben Griffiths uses
Python not Ruby with Scraperwiki? I would. I can ask him in the pub,
hopefully. But better one session that picks up on some of these
leftovers, for all delegates and the masses via video later.

(And now I see Rob has made a helpful contribution on Vestibule on how
best to use Ruby 1.9 with Scraperwiki. The Vestibule aspect is also
important. But I've written enough. Bye now.)