LocalCommunity.Build

The talk will focus on <= 1 day length events that any Rubyists can organize in their locality to nurture and grow a vibrant ruby community. Specifically, the talk will explore in detail two such events - Code Retreat & Rails Bugmash, and will be based on my experience in organizing Code Retreats in Boulder (Feb 2011) & Fort Collins (June 2011), and Rails Bugmashes in Boulder and Bangalore (both in May 2011).

Presenter: @_prakas, from Boulder Ruby Group

Ideas

• Code Retreats
• Bugmashes
• Me: giving back to the community
  • OpenGov
  • Nonprofit
  • Idea: App for organizing giving back to the community?

Code Retreat

• Goal: learning from others
• Day-long
• Single problem (e.g. Conway's Game of Life)
• 45 minute iterations
• Pair programming
• Delete code after each iteration
  • Qs
    • What did they learn?
    • Surprised the most?
    • What do differently from now on?
• Stand up: 15 min retrospective and break
• Switch partners, start again
• Learn!
• Anyone can participate and learn, regardless of skill level. (Spread out skill level!)
• Don't analyze the problem too much; you're learning different approaches to coding
• How many people needed?
  • At least 2

Bug Mash

• E.g., Rails bugmash: contribute bugfixes to Rails
• See Rails Guides: Contributing to Ruby on Rails http://guides.rubyonrails.org/contributing_to_ruby_on_rails.html
• Do pull requests
• Rebase so you have fewer commits, potentially

How?

• Bugmash Location
  • Someplace people can be for 5-6 hours
  • Local company
  • Coworking space
  • Coffee shop
• Code Retreat Location
  • More work
  • Sponsors for (catered) lunch, coffee, breakfast, other expenses
  • Facilitators -- someone else who knows the ropes
  • Coworking spaces are good options as sponsors
• Raising Sponsorships
  • Ask and you shall receive!
  • Coworking spaces
  • Local Ruby firms
  • Tech. book publishers
  • Tech. training companies
  • Recruiting firms

Why?

• Ruby must win! See Dr. Nic's talk "What is your job at your Ruby club?"
• Friends, experience

Tools

• Plancast

TODOs

coreyhaines is planning a Global Day of Code Retreat on 2011/12/3