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

[Pat Allan]

Going to jump in here, even though I'm not a local.

One thing we did in Melbourne which was quite a success was to  
dedicate one month's meeting as Ruby Nuby Night. We had a lot of short  
talks on basics about Ruby and Rails (classes and modules, blocks,  
routes, helpers, etc). If you think that's a good idea, feel free to  
borrow it.

That said, more than half the value of going to Ruby meets for me is  
meeting people, not the technical topics (although they can definitely  
be interesting and useful). So don't hold back on going just because  
Ruby isn't your primary language (yet) - and also head along to the  
pub after and meet people properly.

Cheers

-- 
Pat

On 21/01/2009, at 5:27 PM, Murray Steele wrote:

> 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!
>
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