\nmtnwestruby: Chad Fowler Keynote
\n16 March 2007\n<\/p>\n
\nBackground: Musician. Dropped out of music school to be a programmer.
\nProgramming experience: Perl. Java Enterprise software. Now Ruby.
\nHe’s been organizing international Ruby conferences since 2000, even before he could write a decent Ruby program.\n<\/p>\n
Ruby is at a dangerous crossroads. We need to act, as a community,
\nto avoid failure. How do we need to behave to remain relevant in the industry —
\nas programmers, and as a Ruby community? For so long, Ruby has been perceived
\nas a niche player. The community has been in the habit of fighting, and
\ndefending against FUD. Once we start “winning”, we continue those habits, and
\nnew “converts” to Ruby pickup the same habits. We hear “Ruby doesn’t perform
\nwell”, and we should say “not it doesn’t”. We hear “Ruby doesn’t support
\ninternationalization”, and we should say “no, it doesn’t”.<\/p>\n
\nIf you’re at this conference, you’re a pioneer in the dynamic languages
\ncommunity. In 2001, Matz was the only professional Ruby developer. In 2005,
\nthat had changed because more people were employed to write Ruby code. We’re
\n“winning” in the sense that we can use Ruby in the workplace. Sun and Microsoft
\nare hiring people to work on Ruby.<\/p>\n
\nRuby 2.0 has been vaporware for longer than Perl 6.<\/p>\n
\nThe Ruby community of 2006 and 2007 is a melting pot of backgrounds — PHP,
\n.NET, ASP, 4th Dimension, J2EE, Rails, system admins, the agile community. The
\ntendency is to take a big community and to run it like a big company. The germs
\n(PHP programmers) are going to start coming into the community, and
\nthe antibodies are going to start smashing them. There are some germs in the
\ncommunity that do need to be cleansed. We need to figure out what those germs
\nare, although some germs we will never get rid of.<\/p>\n
\nThere are germs we must be exposed to in order to keep the community strong.<\/p>\n
\nMetaphors influence the way we think about things. Americans think “arguing is war”, and that shapes the way we respond to people in the community. However, not all cultures have that metaphor.<\/p>\n
\nThe book “Leading Revolution” by Gary Hamel is worth reading. It has nothing to do with programming. Things designed in Ivory Towers don’t respond well to small evolutionary changes.<\/p>\n
\nIf we’re trying to grow as a community, creating a new framework like Rails is a waste of time — there are more interesting problems to solve.<\/p>\n
\nWe build systems to support people<\/em>, and sometimes, geeks forget this fact, and become jerks.<\/p>\n \nMonkeys in India are brave and annoying when they’re trying to steal food. \nIn the Ruby community, Chad hopes we are not like the monkey. We need to at \nChad has done well in the Ruby community by doing the things that no one else mtnwestruby: Chad Fowler Keynote 16 March 2007 Background: Musician. Dropped out of music school to be a programmer. Programming experience: Perl. Java Enterprise software. Now Ruby. He’s been organizing international Ruby conferences since 2000, even before he could write a decent Ruby program. Ruby is at a dangerous crossroads. We need to act, as a … <\/p>\n
\nIn Southern India, they’re controlled by creating holes in the ground, with a larger space at the
\nbottom. The hole is just big enough for the monkey to slip his hand into, with
\nfood at the bottom in the bigger space. The monkey wants the food, and puts his
\nhand in. Once he makes a fist by grabbing the food, he can’t pull it out.
\nSomeone comes along and clubs the monkey. The monkey doesn’t let go of the food
\nbecause of value rigidity.<\/p>\n
\nleast be cognizant of the rigid values we have, and whether they’re worth
\nholding onto. Do you identify yourself as a Ruby developer? Hopefully, you are
\nalways reaching for something beyond what you are comfortable with — perhaps
\nit’s Erlang, Haskell, ocaml, etc. If you’re comfortable, if you know the
\nanswers, you aren’t learning. Try to lead, but also try to be learning
\nsomething new.<\/p>\n
\nwants to do — organizing Ruby conferences, bringing publicity to Ruby gems.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"