tundal45@github:~

Ruby DCamp - One weekend of Pure Awesome

I had the opportunity to attend Ruby DCamp this past summer and I am not exaggerating when I say that the experience I had has made a huge impact on me and how I view myself as a programmer. I had just returned from my first Ruby conference when I found out about a 3 day camp in Virginia with Code Retreat on the first day followed by unconference the other two days. Prior to this, I had only heard about code retreats and I had no idea what an unconference was but since the event was free and driving from Connecticut to Virginia was not something that I considered as an inconvenience, I signed up. Little did I know that I was going to come back inspired (if you doubt this, you can talk to anyone from the New York Ruby Meetup group and they will tell you that Ruby DCamp inspired everyone)

The code retreat portion was super fun as we worked on Conway’s Game of Life multiple times, each time with a new partner. It was great to pair program with different people because everyone brought their unique style to the table. It was great to approach the same problem from different angles between focusing on the board once to focusing purely on the rule engine the next. It was so amazing that another member of New York Ruby Meetup and I decided to start a meetup dedicated to beginning rubyists to learn by pair programming and using TDD. While we have been struggling to get space for regular gathering, we’ve had one meetup and have a good level of interest.

Having never been to an unconference, I had no idea what to expect the coming days were going to bring. Summary was that I had my mind blown. I actually “led” a talk on code reading (knowing nothing about it myself but wanting to find more about techniques from other knowledgeable people in the crowd). It was great because the talk evolved to a higher level discussion about coding practices. My mind was blown and not just by what was discussed but by the power and flexibility that unconference gave to everyone to guide the discussion and organically turn into something more awesome.

There were so many great talks but Trevor is much better at taking notes than I am. HI TREVOR! He gave a talk on how to take awesome notes but sadly there was no one to take notes for him (at least no one that I know of). Huge kudos goes to Evan Light who organizes Ruby DCamp every year and inspires so many rubyists on a daily basis. I can also say that he has this amazing superpower of remembering people’s name very quickly. There were about 50-70 of us at the camp and he had no problem remembering people’s name. THAT IS IMPRESSIVE! He also is a go to guy for some good scotch recommendations!

Outside of code retreat and unconference, it was awesome to hang out with rubyists and learn from everyone. If you are a n00b, then you should DEFINITELY go if you can because the sheer amount of knowledge and ideas shared during those three days is unbelievable. Follow ruby_dcamp if you want to stay in the loop for when registrations open up next summer.

And there you have it, my post on Ruby DCamp three months after attending. At this rate, you can expect a post on my experience with Ruby Mendicant University (RMU) in early January :).