[LRUG] Ruby Contracting

[Romek]

Hi,

To me, Ruby contractor roles don't really exist. How many companies
want (or more precisely know that they want) someone who can prototype
everything they think they need to design in a time when research and
development is out of fashion. That's how I contract with ruby. And I
must emphasise WITH ruby. Its never the focal point of my contracting.
I use it as an extra tool in the box when I need to pull a rabbit out
of the hat or scare the hell out of an employer.

The trend for not understanding skills is becoming increasingly
apparent to me. I am in work (in Belgium) and doing the usual way of
using Ruby as a tool around the standard tools you have at disposal
(where Ruby is currently best). See my sslplaypen for an example of
this (http://rubyforge.org/projects/sslplaypen/), presented at
RailsConfEurope last year. I have tried to get Ruby into ISPs and TLDs
and found them lacking in understanding of why we use said things.
Finance companies are more amusing as they don't realise they need
Ruby until you wave it front of them with content (and then they are
suddenly wondering what the hell this special thing you have to show
them is).

And sadly python is currently more fashionable as there is more
structure there (which really needs the same being applied to ruby
instead of this horrendous test first, code later ethic kicking around
here). As, for some weird reason, python has been accepted where ruby
hasn't. But they have the nightmare of Python 2.4 3000 like we have
Ruby 1.8.7, 1.9.1, 1.8.6-p111, p-287 (what is the current version of
Ruby and why is the current Ruby-stable not stable?). Also, when is
Ruby going to realise that to become popular, it needs to be able to
show itself on a Windows platform too so that managers get it!

More scary to me currently is all the people who are saying they are
Web 2.0 architects with skills in Rails, AJAX, SSO, Identity
Management when none of this has really worked in any way shape or
form (show me a rich Web 2.0 person as there didn't seem any at any of
the conferences I saw in London). The recession will weed out any
company not making profit from this. And with it will go all those
wonderful wikis, blogs, rss feeds which have no real financial need. I
never find I need such things, except to ice the cake and make it look
pretty.

But the UK agencies are looking to get someone with Ruby and Rails
experience - I don't do Rails so don't fit their perfect mould of
coders.
For example last week I was put up for a RoR contract in Oxford (to
set up PHP/RoR websites) by a recruiter with initials CF and then
offered to retrain by the same contractor as a mechanical engineer
(cause I had a degree!). I have since asked said recruiter to go jump
off a cliff (and remove my CV too!).

To recruitment agencies, an experienced ruby contractor is someone who
frequently upsets jewellers by causing their gemstones to shrink. The
agencies tend to look at the people who present first and don't ask
what experience you have.

Current recruitment agencies buzzwords: Enterprise, SSO, VoIP, CISSP, ISO9001
Current buzzwords for recruiters: Clueless, illiterate, unimaginative,
space-wasters

Now I shall return to lurking in dull Brussels where the Belgian Ruby
users seem to communicate via semaphore. At least I am staying in
employment here.

My sunny regards to the LRUG community,
Romek