Over the last year or so, I’ve really enjoyed Montreal on Rails. There have been lots of awesome presentations, and general good times had by all.
When Carl asked for feedback on Uservoice, a lot of people seemed interested in more presentations geared towards newbies. While presentations can be really interesting and useful, most of the best programmers I know learned their craft through open source work. There’s no better way to improve your skills (not to mention your profile in the industry).
So, I’ve been thinking about organizing a monthly, open source hackfest.
It would be an informal evening where people could come and work on FLOSS. If you have a project, it would be a great place to get help from some of your local ruby gurus, or just an excuse to work on your project. If not, it’d be a great place to pick up a project and learn from other developers.
At the end of every evening, we could have a few lightning talks (5mins), to give people the opportunity to show off what they’ve been working on. Or not, if nobody wants to speak. Only rule: no preparation allowed. No slides. Nothing.
Think of it sort of like Zed Shaw’s Freehacker’s Union, minus the hazing ritual for new members.
So, what do you think? If we turned MoR in to an open source hack fest for a couple of months, would you miss the presentations? Is this something you’re interested in trying out? Will you be offended if we open it up to all things Ruby, instead of just rails?
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November 4th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Very cool idea! And I do actually have a silly little project that may be cool to show. So that’s at least one lightning talk to keep us waiting for the beer. MUHAHAHA!
November 4th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Count me in. This gives us both the real-time community hacking fun + short presentations. Definetly an interesting way to get to know fellow hackers, too.
I’m also very much in favor of the “all things ruby” part. merb/sinatra/invisible etc… lots of fun and exploration.
November 4th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
I’ll be there.
November 4th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
This is a very interesting idea. I feel that the number of people presenting is waning with each month. If we want to preserve the community, we really need to do something. A hackfest like this would be great. I’d offer myself as a “mentor”, so that interested parties could use my help any which way they want.
November 4th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
+1
November 4th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Hi Guys,
saw a link to this post on twitter,
Never came to MoR, but very interrested and am local.
Very Good Idea James!
Looking forward to the hackfest!
November 4th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Great idea ! Count me in.
November 4th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Great idea. I’m in.
November 5th, 2008 at 12:21 am
Good idea! Does the project have to be Ruby?
November 6th, 2008 at 10:23 am
Wow! Awesome response
@rob I’d like to keep it restricted to ruby projects now, simply due to space constraints at the current venue.
Looks like we’ll be going ahead with this…
November 6th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Cool, that works for me.
Does this serve as a replacement for the normal MoR, or is this a new thing altogether?
November 6th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
Super idée. Je suis de la partie.
November 7th, 2008 at 8:31 am
@rob this would serve as a replacement for the normal MoR.
December 4th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
[...] after asking the community, it seems pretty clear that there’s interest in the concept. There’s only [...]