> So I gave a presentation on Rails to the Utah Java Users Group last
> night. It went very well, I think. There were three presentations--I
> was sandwiched between JDO and Tapestry. 
The big questions then are:
1) How did it go?
Really well, I think. The audience was very considerate, the questions
were very appropriate, and they laughed in all the right places.
There were over 100 people there, too--the largest group I've ever
given a Ruby-based presentation to.
2) For those of us that might be planning Rails presentations to
non-Ruby audiences, what should we watch for/think about?
For me, I was trying to show a group of Java users how easy it is to
use Rails. So I avoided "teaching" Ruby syntax, and instead focused on
things like the code generation (which I demonstrated). They _really_
loved that Rails uses WordNet to suggest model and controller names
when there is a conflict. If I had it to do over again, I'd
probably use more little things like that in the presentation.
I also tried to focus on Rails' performance, which I think is where
most of their interest was. These people were all pretty focused on
Java--using it in their workplace, etc., so it's not very likely that
any single presentation would ever convert them to Ruby if all it does
is focus on "cool". So I tried to give some performance metrics for
Basecamp and 43 Things (thanks very much to DHH and Eric Hodel for
their assistance!), and I think that really opened their eyes.
One thing that tripped me up: I was demonstrating a simple AR model:
class Book < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :author
validates_presence_of :name
validates_presence_of :isbn
validates_uniqueness_of :isbn
validates_format_of :isbn, :with => /^[- \d]+$/
end
I hadn't considered how foreign that might look to a non-Rubyist.
I got the question "are those method calls?" And how do you explain
that in two sentences? Method calls, in the middle of a class
definition? I tried, but I think I just boggled them. So, beware.
There were a few technical things I would do differently next time:
1) Don't try to be clever and type out method comments in the screen
capture videos. It might be nice for later, when you distribute
the video, but during the presentation it just makes it lag.
2) Keep the action in the videos as close to the top of the screen
as possible, so that people sitting WAY in the back can see it
better.
3) Use a very high contrast color scheme for the syntax
highlighting. Some of the colors were hard to read when
projected.
4) And last, something I just need to do better at in general when
giving presentations to large groups: repeat every question that
is asked of me, instead of just assuming everyone can hear it,
and that *I* heard it correctly.
- Jamis
路路路
On 04:17 Sat 19 Feb , pat eyler wrote:
On Sat, 19 Feb 2005 03:48:24 +0900, Jamis Buck <jamis_buck@byu.edu> wrote:
--
Jamis Buck
jamis_buck@byu.edu
http://jamis.jamisbuck.org
------------------------------
"I am Victor of Borge. You will be assimil-nine-ed."
I must say, I *am*