Care and Feeding of
Ruby Developers
Steve Sanderson
http://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.
Sur vey - 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 start
a range from loose (almost in the background) to tight collaborations
Course 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 space
may 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 ser vices (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 Sanderson
http://fiveruns.com
http://stevesanderson.com