[LRUG] Chat Digest, Vol 36, Issue 11 (Beware of the Nuby)

[Murray Steele]

Hi Sebastian,

2009/1/20 Sebastian Komianos <sebkom at grubies.gr> wrote:

What I wanted to say basically is that I believe it would be quite
> attractive and useful to have beginners-oriented talks in every meeting.


This is something that's been mooted before and I think it would be a great
idea to help out the beginners more.  However, we need people to actually
give these beginner talks and it's hard enough to get any talks some
months.  Demanding that each month also has a 10-15 minute beginner talk
might make it even harder to source talks, not to mention limit the kinds of
alternative meetings we could do (like this months lightning talks).  Not
that I'm against the idea of helping out the newbies so...

One thing that we can do is start mentioning to the speakers that we're a
mixed ability group and maybe they should devote some of their allotted time
to explaining some of the basics, or even sending out "homework" materials
that people can read beforehand to get up to speed if they don't think they
have the time, or want to focus more on indepth stuff.

Anyone else have any ideas or thoughts on this?

I have been waiting for the most "suitable"
> meeting of yours to attend but I always find that I won't be able to follow
> them since I pretty much know nothing more than the basics of the language.
>

You might not follow everything, but I think just turning up would help you
start to learn more about Ruby.  The talks will usually have some code in
them and so expose you to more ruby, you might not "get" it immediately, but
you will at least get an idea of something to go and learn more about.  If
there's stuff you don't understand in the talks you can always ask
questions, either at the end of the talk in front of the group (and no-one
will boo you for asking "simple" questions - so don't worry about it), or
grab the speaker after the main meeting and ask them directly.  After the
main meeting we generally head to a pub for a pint or two and you can chat
to anyone there and ask for help, mentoring, advice on books to get, etc...
It's a great place to learn as the pub will be full of ruby folk to tap up
for help.


> Thank you for your time, sorry for the mess once again.
>

No need to apologise, we should be trying to help all the folk that turn up,
or want to turn up, to LRUG.

Cheers,

Murray


> P.S: I'd really appreciate it if someone could also explain to me how to
> reply...properly!


There's no way to reply "properly" as long as you manage to reply I think
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