Aug
7
Debrief: First Meeting
posted by Mathieu Balez
So, that was fun!
I think it’s fair to say that our inaugural event was a modestly big success. Thanks to all of you who came out and participated in the evening. Thanks especially to Marc-André and Carl who gave sweet presentations. Big ups to you guys.
An administrative request: If you came out this evening, please drop a comment on this post with:
1) Your thoughts + suggestions.
2) Your contact information (if you’d like to share it for networking purposes). We may roll this info up into a “Local RoR Devs Contact Page” on this blog. Is that a good idea?
Some thoughts from my end:
- The room is probably not ideal - I’d like to explore options to find us a bigger space, and one where donut consumption may not be met with such scorn
Some people have mentioned the ETS, if anyone else has other suggestions or contacts, please let me know. (I think we’ll have to do it at the same venue for September, because we won’t have time to organize something properly before then. I’m shooting to have something better lined up for the October event) - Upcoming.org was suggested to be too onerous. How big of a problem is this? We’ll consider a wiki, or other options, but want to make sure it’s a sufficiently big issue to warrant the effort. For now, I’ll just set up a new Upcoming page and if it’s a big deal we’ll switch to a more flexible option. (Upcoming sent me a free tshirt so I’m a fan… what can I say, my love is cheap).
- I’m not sure if the “discussion forum” after the presentations really worked. Should we try again? Have people submit questions in advance? Maybe try a different angle?
Thanks again for kicking off MoR on such an enthusiastic note. Look forward to seeing you next month!
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August 8th, 2007 at 6:49 am
I’d like to start by saying that the first meeting exceeded my expectations, both of the audience and the quality of the presentations. I think the split between advanced and beginner lectures is very appropriate. I also agree that it could be useful to allow people to submit questions in advance on certain topics, if you do go that way it may be useful to have a venue where people can post snippets in advance. Having said that I think that there should still be an open forum for questions and discussions towards the end of the meetup.
As for contact info, you can reach me, Chris Lamothe, at chrisNOTTHISPARTlamothe@gmail.com or give me a call at 514-8678-514. (I wonder how advanced telephone spam is these days).
August 8th, 2007 at 7:31 am
Thanks from me too for a fun meeting and two well-done and interesting presentations!
I thought it went well for a first meeting but I also agree that the discussion after the presentations could be more fruitful. Posting questions in advance is maybe a good idea, or try to think of topics to discuss.
Marc-Andre’s presentation was very interesting and could perhaps have been followed by a discussion on unit testing in general?
The other thing I thought could be fun was to have a RRobots (http://rrobots.rubyforge.org/) tournament. This is more a ruby thing than rails thing but I figure it doesn’t hurt to brush up on our pure ruby skills too. I participated in a RoboCode tournament in a Java group I was part of and it was a lot of fun - if I remember correctly we were allowed an hour to write our robots and afterwards we had the tournament right there. That requires everyone to have computers though, so we could also write our robots at home and just have the tournament together. Maybe the top three would be required to present their robots to the group or something like that.
An extra donut is allright.
.. oh, and there has to be prizes of course.
Thanks again, looking forward to the activity on the list/group as well as the next meeting!
August 8th, 2007 at 8:59 am
[...] appreciated, or if you have any suggestion or comment about the event, please post them on the event blog, Mat is looking for some [...]
August 8th, 2007 at 9:29 am
Thanks for organizing this Mat and inviting me to speak, I had a real great time!
I think not beeing able to eat donuts in the room is a big problem. Seriously, we should definatly get a bigger room. I think this would be possible at ETS.
I like upcoming as I already use it to register to all other mtl tech events.
Maybe the discussion forum didn’t kickoff, maybe having a pool of question on a wiki page could be great to kick this off. But the the unofficial discussions afterward were amazing.
I like the idea of a contact page, here’s my info:
Marc-Andre Cournoyer
macournoyer_AT_gmail.com
http://macournoyer.com
August 8th, 2007 at 10:39 am
J’ai bien apprécié la soirée, autant les présentations que le fait de pouvoir discuter avec les gens une fois le tout terminé. C’est agréable de voir le dynamisme de la communauté RoR de Montréal!
Par contre, je suis d’accord qu’il serait bien d’avoir une salle plus grande pour la prochaine fois. Aussi, pouvoir manger/boire en paix serait apprécié. Finalement, 90% des gens étaient déjà arrivé pour 6:30h, peut être que l’on pourrait penser à devancer l’heure des prochaines rencontres?
Idée de sujets pour la prochaine rencontre: des trucs avec Textmate, Sass, des exemples de méta coding, parler des GEM / plugin que l’on utilise…
On peut me rejoindre @ alain(.)pilon chez gmail.
August 8th, 2007 at 10:49 am
[...] presentation last night at Montreal on Rails rocked. He tackled the issue of making unit tests faster by mocking web [...]
August 8th, 2007 at 11:19 am
Excellente soirée! C’est très motivant de partager joie (et frustrations) avec d’autres collègues RoR. Les présentations étaient parfaites: straight to the point & hands-on.
Ce qui serait bien serait de peut-être parler de “découvertes” récentes, comme par example un nouveau plugin/gem qui vient de sortir et semble prometteur. Si personne ne le connait, peut-être qu’un(e) volontaire pourrait l’essayer et en parler au meeting suivant.
Bref, ce fût super, et j’ai bien hâte au prochain meeting.
P.S. HAML rocks! Je vais l’utiliser dans mon prochain projet. J’ai essayé le caching, et ca fonctionne pour le caching de page au complet (je n’ai pas essayé avec le caching des partial).
August 8th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
[...] night saw the birth of the Montreal On Rails user group in a small room on the Mcgill campus. It was a lot of [...]
August 8th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
Un gros merci aux organisateurs! La soirée a été terrifique.
Voici quelques suggestions:
* Bigger room for more people, but also more open space to make it easier to socialize, and a room where donuts are allowed
* Wiki on montrealonrails.com so people can post suggestions for topics that would interest them for presentations
* Maybe we can have a round of quick presentation (2-5 mins) if let’s say you want to present a small plugin or a ruby trick. This could help orient discussions after the main presentation. It would also allow more people to talk and present themselves, in a less intimidating way than a full blown presentation.
* Maybe someone is crazy enough to want to videotape the presentations?
August 8th, 2007 at 9:59 pm
[...] to other reports you can find in other montreal rails blogs, I won’t go into technical details. I would only say that the speakers, [...]
August 9th, 2007 at 12:29 am
[...] I went to the very first edition of Montreal on Rails in the beautiful McGill [...]
August 9th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
[...] MA has his own account of the event online. - The event debrief is at the Montreal on Rails [...]
August 9th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
Great event, thanks for organizing. I agree with the need for a larger room.
As for future presentations, I’d love to see some beginner tutorials or some presentation about the business advantages to convince other local dev shops to move to Rails. I asked my guest to come to discover Rails but it may have been a little difficult to actually understand what was going on with the advanced presentation.
I enjoyed both presentations although my prog chops aren’t anywhere near MA’s in Ruby and Rails.
Maybe starting at 6 or 6.30 could help, as could the scheduling of the easier session at the start.
Looking forward to the next one and to a real Rails community.
My contact details are on YashLabs.
Best
August 10th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
Thanks for all the great feedback folks. I’ve tried to roll-up the feedback and provide some responses below:
- Space: We all agree we need something more appropriate. I’ve put some feelers out, but please get in touch with me if you have any contacts that might be able to help us score a nice room for October.
- Wiki: Some have suggested a Wiki for: 1) Signups; 2) Questions; 3) Presentation Topics so it may make sense to put one up on this site. TBD when Carl returns from holidays.
- Round of quick presentations: I like the idea of people being able to share quick tips & tricks. I think we’ll try this for next month’s meeting - so start compiling your ideas. We’ll allow for as many as we have time for (and there is interest for) after the main presentations.
- Start time: I think it probably makes sense to start a little earlier, given that everyone was so diligent with being there on time. Will confirm.
- Fun: Terje’s idea of RRobot battle sounds fun to me! I’ll put this to the group at our next meeting to test the group’s interest in such an event.
August 13th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
I would also like to say: “thumbs up” to the guys & “gals” who made the Montreal on Rails first meeting a success. Special thanks to Carl for cluing us in on Haml. Yes, it rocks! I am heartened to see the caliber and quality of the Ror people in our city. I myself am content with UpComing event log; but would “go with the flow” if a Wiki gets a greenlight. Marc-Andre, you are “awesome”! Much success at Standout Jobs.
* I agree with Josh: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced streams - if possible. Or breaking into smaller units per level for discussion
* More input, again if possible, on how Ror is being supported in the city or region. Is it increasing in its acceptance and use.
* How e-Commerce is being handled by Ror. Anymore gateways being accessible?
Much thanks to Matt B. for making people feel welcome, and of course fed! I’ve noticed developers can be a “ravenous” group -
Will check Mor regularly for news. And hope to be at the next meeting.