[Rails] NYC Meetup?

ruby-talk
1

(i just joined the ruby-talk list and am forwarding this post since it's predecessor went here as well)

Pat,

I fully agree about learning from the 'elders', and that cooperation and
cross-talk should be encouraged from the start. I don't think
fragmenting interests is too much of a concern at this point, though, as
anyone coding for RoR is likely to be pretty interested in Ruby as a
language anyway. I certainly am. In fact I plan to encourage anyone
coming to the RoR to go to the NYC.rb as well. Depending on the size of
the interest (I have 4 ppl so far), maybe we'll ask the NYC.rb leader
(Francis I know you're on ruby-talk) to set aside some time for each
meeting just to focus on RoR.

My rationale for wanting to start a Rails-specific group is that the
ruby-nyc group is for the language, and those members have interests
that don't necessarily deal directly with the web. While they would
probably be interested to hear new members talk about Rails (and they
were when I did so), I wouldn't want to alienate them by hogging the
discussion about the Web.

Since this is going to the Ruby-talk list... any Ruby folks there
interested in a NYC meetup?

Matt

pat eyler wrote:

···

On Apr 12, 2005 3:40 PM, Matt Pelletier <pelletierm@eastmedia.net> wrote:

Hi Pat (and Paul, from earlier reply),

Actually I did go to last month's Ruby Group (If you guys are watching I
was the newbie). It was quite helpful, and I even came out with a free
'Learn Ruby in 21 days' (thanks Francis), but my impression was that it
was more oriented toward the language itself than to Rails, esp. as it's
been around longer than Rails has existed. We talked about Rails a bit,
but I don't want to inadvertantly steer those meetings into discussions
just about Rails. So I will continue to attend them, but if there is
enough interest in NYC I'd like to start one that focuses on Rails
itself. There are plenty of developers here and I'd wager the interest
is only going to grow.

Actually I'm no where near NYC, so I didn't see you at the last meeting. ;^)

I am concerned though that by starting Rails specific groups, we fragment a community that is still fairly young. I think having a RoR group is a great idea, but I'd rather see it run in cooperation with an NYC.rb (or whatever). I
think the new Rails folks can learn a lot from experienced Rubyists, and the
'old timers' can certainly get a boost from the new folks that RoR will bring
in.

just my $0.02

Matt

2

Hey all,

( First off, if you don't know, the Ruby-NYC group can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ruby-nyc/ . )

I guess the general policy when it comes to topicality in Ruby-NYC is that we want to talk about whatever Rubyists are interested in, in sensible proportions so as not to bore anybody too much. I don't mind if the group ends up having particular obsessions. Last year, a lot of our meetings kept drifting back to Topic Maps, del.icio.us, and the philosophy of classifications (I am looking at you, Rob). Rails is a perfectly good obsession, too.

That said, I don't think I'd want to devote a set portion of each meeting to *any* topic in particular, whether that's Rails or Topic Maps or electoral politics (we talk that sometimes, too). But here are a few ways in which the Ruby-NYC group might be of interest specifically for Railsers:

- I am always looking for people to do quick, informal presentations on a subject they have some experience with, and you don't have to be an expert to give a presentation. If Rails fans want to do presentations about Rails in general or specific aspects of it, I am very open to that.
- Meetings tend to be about 1/3 informal presentation and 2/3 chatting about whatever, so if you come with 3 other Rails fans then you'll probably end up talking about Rails quite a bit if that's what you want.

I'm also interested in some good cross-pollination; I think everybody has a lot they can learn from everyone else. But I wouldn't want Ruby-NYC to be heavily focused on any particular application or library or framework. So, I guess the answer is, if Rails users would find that interesting, then you should come. If you want to be exclusively focused on Rails, then I certainly won't be offended if you decide to have a Rails-only group.

Also, please don't call us pre-Rails Rubyists "elders". It makes us self-conscious of our hairlines.

Francis Hwang

···

On Apr 12, 2005, at 6:14 PM, Matt Pelletier wrote:

(i just joined the ruby-talk list and am forwarding this post since it's predecessor went here as well)

Pat,

I fully agree about learning from the 'elders', and that cooperation and
cross-talk should be encouraged from the start. I don't think
fragmenting interests is too much of a concern at this point, though, as
anyone coding for RoR is likely to be pretty interested in Ruby as a
language anyway. I certainly am. In fact I plan to encourage anyone
coming to the RoR to go to the NYC.rb as well. Depending on the size of
the interest (I have 4 ppl so far), maybe we'll ask the NYC.rb leader
(Francis I know you're on ruby-talk) to set aside some time for each
meeting just to focus on RoR.

My rationale for wanting to start a Rails-specific group is that the
ruby-nyc group is for the language, and those members have interests
that don't necessarily deal directly with the web. While they would
probably be interested to hear new members talk about Rails (and they
were when I did so), I wouldn't want to alienate them by hogging the
discussion about the Web.

Since this is going to the Ruby-talk list... any Ruby folks there
interested in a NYC meetup?

Matt

pat eyler wrote:

On Apr 12, 2005 3:40 PM, Matt Pelletier <pelletierm@eastmedia.net> >> wrote:

Hi Pat (and Paul, from earlier reply),

Actually I did go to last month's Ruby Group (If you guys are watching I
was the newbie). It was quite helpful, and I even came out with a free
'Learn Ruby in 21 days' (thanks Francis), but my impression was that it
was more oriented toward the language itself than to Rails, esp. as it's
been around longer than Rails has existed. We talked about Rails a bit,
but I don't want to inadvertantly steer those meetings into discussions
just about Rails. So I will continue to attend them, but if there is
enough interest in NYC I'd like to start one that focuses on Rails
itself. There are plenty of developers here and I'd wager the interest
is only going to grow.

Actually I'm no where near NYC, so I didn't see you at the last meeting. ;^)
I am concerned though that by starting Rails specific groups, we fragment a community that is still fairly young. I think having a RoR group is a great idea, but I'd rather see it run in cooperation with an NYC.rb (or whatever). I
think the new Rails folks can learn a lot from experienced Rubyists, and the
'old timers' can certainly get a boost from the new folks that RoR will bring
in.
just my $0.02

Matt

3

I'm in NYC too and keep planning to show up, but for whatever reason a
meeting at the beginning of the month gets squashed by other pressing
things at the beginning of the month.

Now, if you did the Rails group in the middle of the month, then I'd
have double the chance to go chat with Ruby folks or Rails folks or both
or half one then the other.

Anyway, I'd consider it.

Zed A. Shaw

···

On Wed, 2005-04-13 at 07:14 +0900, Matt Pelletier wrote:

(i just joined the ruby-talk list and am forwarding this post since it's
predecessor went here as well)

Pat,

I fully agree about learning from the 'elders', and that cooperation and
cross-talk should be encouraged from the start. I don't think
fragmenting interests is too much of a concern at this point, though, as
anyone coding for RoR is likely to be pretty interested in Ruby as a
language anyway. I certainly am. In fact I plan to encourage anyone
coming to the RoR to go to the NYC.rb as well. Depending on the size of
the interest (I have 4 ppl so far), maybe we'll ask the NYC.rb leader
(Francis I know you're on ruby-talk) to set aside some time for each
meeting just to focus on RoR.

My rationale for wanting to start a Rails-specific group is that the
ruby-nyc group is for the language, and those members have interests
that don't necessarily deal directly with the web. While they would
probably be interested to hear new members talk about Rails (and they
were when I did so), I wouldn't want to alienate them by hogging the
discussion about the Web.

Since this is going to the Ruby-talk list... any Ruby folks there
interested in a NYC meetup?

Matt

4

I'm in full agreement here. I'd rather everyone get together in one place for a mixed discussion. That almost invariably leads to better discussions / learning.

I'm going to keep the 2nd group open to see what interest there is, but as far as meetings go, I'll try to get everyone to just come the ruby-nyc meetings. No reason to fork the rails discussions off if it's not obtrusive.

Matt

Francis Hwang wrote:

···

Hey all,

( First off, if you don't know, the Ruby-NYC group can be found at Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos . )

I guess the general policy when it comes to topicality in Ruby-NYC is that we want to talk about whatever Rubyists are interested in, in sensible proportions so as not to bore anybody too much. I don't mind if the group ends up having particular obsessions. Last year, a lot of our meetings kept drifting back to Topic Maps, del.icio.us, and the philosophy of classifications (I am looking at you, Rob). Rails is a perfectly good obsession, too.

That said, I don't think I'd want to devote a set portion of each meeting to *any* topic in particular, whether that's Rails or Topic Maps or electoral politics (we talk that sometimes, too). But here are a few ways in which the Ruby-NYC group might be of interest specifically for Railsers:

- I am always looking for people to do quick, informal presentations on a subject they have some experience with, and you don't have to be an expert to give a presentation. If Rails fans want to do presentations about Rails in general or specific aspects of it, I am very open to that.
- Meetings tend to be about 1/3 informal presentation and 2/3 chatting about whatever, so if you come with 3 other Rails fans then you'll probably end up talking about Rails quite a bit if that's what you want.

I'm also interested in some good cross-pollination; I think everybody has a lot they can learn from everyone else. But I wouldn't want Ruby-NYC to be heavily focused on any particular application or library or framework. So, I guess the answer is, if Rails users would find that interesting, then you should come. If you want to be exclusively focused on Rails, then I certainly won't be offended if you decide to have a Rails-only group.

Also, please don't call us pre-Rails Rubyists "elders". It makes us self-conscious of our hairlines.

Francis Hwang
http://fhwang.net/

On Apr 12, 2005, at 6:14 PM, Matt Pelletier wrote:

(i just joined the ruby-talk list and am forwarding this post since it's predecessor went here as well)

Pat,

I fully agree about learning from the 'elders', and that cooperation and
cross-talk should be encouraged from the start. I don't think
fragmenting interests is too much of a concern at this point, though, as
anyone coding for RoR is likely to be pretty interested in Ruby as a
language anyway. I certainly am. In fact I plan to encourage anyone
coming to the RoR to go to the NYC.rb as well. Depending on the size of
the interest (I have 4 ppl so far), maybe we'll ask the NYC.rb leader
(Francis I know you're on ruby-talk) to set aside some time for each
meeting just to focus on RoR.

My rationale for wanting to start a Rails-specific group is that the
ruby-nyc group is for the language, and those members have interests
that don't necessarily deal directly with the web. While they would
probably be interested to hear new members talk about Rails (and they
were when I did so), I wouldn't want to alienate them by hogging the
discussion about the Web.

Since this is going to the Ruby-talk list... any Ruby folks there
interested in a NYC meetup?

Matt

pat eyler wrote:

On Apr 12, 2005 3:40 PM, Matt Pelletier <pelletierm@eastmedia.net> >>> wrote:

Hi Pat (and Paul, from earlier reply),

Actually I did go to last month's Ruby Group (If you guys are watching I
was the newbie). It was quite helpful, and I even came out with a free
'Learn Ruby in 21 days' (thanks Francis), but my impression was that it
was more oriented toward the language itself than to Rails, esp. as it's
been around longer than Rails has existed. We talked about Rails a bit,
but I don't want to inadvertantly steer those meetings into discussions
just about Rails. So I will continue to attend them, but if there is
enough interest in NYC I'd like to start one that focuses on Rails
itself. There are plenty of developers here and I'd wager the interest
is only going to grow.

Actually I'm no where near NYC, so I didn't see you at the last meeting. ;^)
I am concerned though that by starting Rails specific groups, we fragment a community that is still fairly young. I think having a RoR group is a great idea, but I'd rather see it run in cooperation with an NYC.rb (or whatever). I
think the new Rails folks can learn a lot from experienced Rubyists, and the
'old timers' can certainly get a boost from the new folks that RoR will bring
in.
just my $0.02

Matt

5

Hey all,

Also, please don't call us pre-Rails Rubyists "elders". It makes us
self-conscious of our hairlines.

You've obviously never seen my hairline Francis. ;^)

···

On 4/12/05, Francis Hwang <sera@fhwang.net> wrote:

Francis Hwang
http://fhwang.net/

--
thanks,
-pate
-------------------------
We are often unable to tell people what they need to know, because
they want to know something else, and would therefore only
misunderstand what we said
- the Raven (George MacDonald, Lilith)