Care and Feeding of Ruby Developers

Steve Sandersonhttp://fiveruns.com

http://stevesanderson.com

Knowing more about ourselves - as developers, as a community - is useful

This is a soft talk, won’t end with “rake ...” command

Because it’s a soft talk, I can never be wrong...

Also - I’d like this to more like a conversation - so please feel free to jump up with questions during the talk, we don’t need to wait until the end.

Survey - how many self-describe as ruby developers?... as a developer?

How many have to manage in some form?

Whatʼs Next• Some Important Qualities

• Collaboration

• Planning

• Stars

• Aesthetics

• Care & Feeding

We know itʼs not...

Pervasive Aesthetics

more so than any community I've seen, all kinds of aesthetics are important

aesthetics of software design

standalone small parts that are whole- this comes to us from the open source culture

aesthetics of visual design

aesthetics of work environment

Personal workspace has great importance

People will find nice places to work

aesthetics of personal style

However, it’s mostly white and maie - no hockey moms in the crowd...

Collaboration

assumed in the community, i.e. baked in from the starta range from loose (almost in the background) to tight collaborationsCourse correcting feedback comes from those collaborations - whether tightly from a team or loosely from the community.

If you’re working on the wrong thing- you’ll find out, i.e. you may become irrelevant

If you’re working on the right thing with bad quality, you’ll find out

independent of physical location

Distributed work is a a great inheritance from the open source culture

independent of organizational boundaries

the drive to constantly open source (which came from teh open source culture) represents this as well

don't figure prominently as a constraint when doing technical work

when a problem needs to be solved, find the right person first - don't worry about what organization they happen to be in at the moment

Also people actively look for opportunities to defeat proprietary tendencies - also from the open source culture

Problems being solved which were once someone else's domain (e.g. IT)

Do They Know Youʼre Alive?

something that's interesting needs to 'look alive'a heartbeat, some regular sign

The doing is close to the planning

We inherited some great memes from the open source culture - especially working in a planning model where the people dong the work are the people driving the work

close in organizational spacemay overlap - i.e. be the same person

work closely to the locus of control

the who's that are doing the how are very close to the who's that are determining the why and the what

Results In More *Stars*

related to 'doing is close to the planning'

the people that plan the ideas are the people who create them vs envision of idea is separate from its production

Living On The Edge With The Latest

take advantage of improvements quickly

another medium for collaboration

works because of closed feedback loops

Enlightened Capitalists

passion + useful action is rewarded - came from open source culture - but reward was either personal reputation or from actual use of the results.

In Ruby community (esp. the Rails part) we’ve added that the value comes from money by selling services (online or people)

love this stuff - and want to make money with it

Care & Feeding?

• Awareness

• Purpose

• How well do your other communities match these qualities?

Awareness of these qualities is useful

Use depends on purpose - want to work better? want to get more folks? want to change or challenge some of these qualities? want to blend with communities that have different qualities?

Other communities - companies, partners, clients, etc.

Some Specifics• In your environment, how are you

supporting / blocking forms of collaboration?

• Ok with your collaborators to cross organizational boundaries?

• What language does that other tribe speak?

We are constantly tweaking how we work remotely - with people here in Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, Scotland, etc.

Larger / established companies or clients may not ‘get’ crossing org. boundaries

Collaboration can mean working closely with other tribes and some of them speak different languages - e.g. marketing, customers, sales, etc. To collaborate well, it means learning other languages and perhaps other concepts. At a minimum it means respect of the other tribes’ culture.

Problems to be solved include those in the IT/ops world - and people are solving them (e.g. capistrano, Rails DB migration)

More Specifics• Do you ʻlook aliveʼ to others in the

community?

• How close is the ʻlocus of controlʼ?

• Plan for people that blend technical and aesthetics (left-brain and right-brain)

• People will find nice places to work - make that happen

How close is the ‘locus of control’? Can it get closer, does it need to get closer, will your larger environment accept this notion?

How many designers in the community?

FiveRuns moved to get to better quality space - people also move space that suits their mood, aesthetics figures in a lot to this

avoid this problem

Thanks

Steve Sandersonhttp://fiveruns.com

http://stevesanderson.com