On Mar 2, 2006, at 9:31 PM, symbiat0 wrote:

> --- In ruby-nyc@yahoogroups.com, Francis Hwang <sera@...> wrote:
>
>> * Are the presentation nights useful? Are there any topics you would
>> really love to see covered? Are there enough talks for those of you
>> who consider yourself beginners? For those of you who consider
>> yourself experts?
>
> As a beginner (Im learning Rails), it would be nice to have some 
> Rails stuff once in
> awhile :-) I think really there's not enough stuff for Ruby/Rails 
> beginners truth be told. Im
> grateful to be able to approach people and ask questions (thanks 
> Sebastian!) but newbies
> need a bit of help. I find that Im grappling more with the object 
> design side of things
> rather than the actual syntax of the language - maybe that's more 
> of a general OOP design
> thing?

Yeah, we have had a lot of Ruby-centric talks, but I can see the 
appeal of Rails talks too. If anybody wants to give Rails talks, let 
me know please.

>
>> * Are the "hackfests" useful? Should we be using that time in
>> slightly different ways, maybe with more structured learning
>> exercises, etc.?
>
> Hackfests are great but Im not averse to having some more structure 
> once in a blue moon.
> Im also on other NY lists (NYLUG, NYPHP, etc) and they tend to have 
> guest speakers that
> come and give presentations/talks now and then. We are a small 
> group but I hope
> eventually we can get to the point where we can invite people to 
> come speak.

Well, there's no reason those invited speakers can't be part of our 
end-of-the-month presentation-focused meeting. If anybody has ideas 
on people they want to come and speak here, either locals or non-New 
Yorkers who might be travelling our way, please feel free to let me 
know, and maybe we can start inviting people more directly.

As for the hackfest slot: My two cents (and there was chat about this 
on IRC) is that presentations only get you so far, and maybe 
beginners need more hands-on teaching. I wonder if that's something 
we could do at those meetings too. Mentorships or just one-on-one 
sessions or whatever. Also, I think at one meeting a bunch of people 
went through one of the Ruby Quizzes and found it a really useful 
exercise.

Francis Hwang
http://fhwang.net/

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