My Madison Ruby Story

http://marginaldialogue.blogspot.com/2012/09/my-madison-ruby-story.html

by jremsikjr • 14 years ago

79 28 14 years ago

marginaldialogue.blogspot.com

Never underestimate the power of bacon to bring together the technical with the aught to be technical. I've heard nothing but good things here in Madison about the conference as a way to broaden the appeal the ruby community seems to have for folks who fear approaching development.

HeXetic• 14 years ago

Wow the original title for this submission, "How to Recruit Women into Tech: A Madison Ruby case study", completely missed the mark and I am glad it was changed.

jremsikjr3• 14 years ago

I lifted it from a tweet describing the article from a third party but, you're right.

the-come-ons• 14 years ago

I, too, was skipping out on the technical panel and was in the room when Wendy's name was called. It was quite humorous to see her realize it was her name that was called. She said "that's me", got up and ran out of the room in excitement yelling “WAAAAIT!"

I'm happy to have that memory and to have this blog post to remind me of one of the many great parts of the Madison ruby conference. I am definitely returning next year! Maybe I will win the gift certificate this time...

simon3• 14 years ago

I work as a Java developer here in Mad Town, but I must say that I know some really nice, welcoming and seriously excellent Ruby programmers here.

Glad to hear that my impression of the local Rubyists was not wrong.

Mmmmm ... Wisconsin cheese is awesome! :-)

JLRemsik• 14 years ago

We felt Madison Ruby was a huge success. Reading Wendy's story makes all of the hard work worthwhile.

patja• 14 years ago

I started reading with that feeling of dread that this was going to be another indictment of tech conference misogyny that would make me feel sad for the world, my daughters, and our profession. How delightful to hear this inspirational response to a tech conference experience!

simon3• 14 years ago

Yup, that was my initial thought too. I have two daughters and I have gotten my eldest going with Ubuntu on her school laptop and she's loving it. I'm introducing her to shell scripting and LaTeX (through the awesome Pandoc tool) right now.

egiva4• 14 years ago

The keyword density and some of the keyword repetition for this article makes me suspicious. Not questioning the experience - I read it and it sounded great. Just analyzing the most common words and phrases used though - so you decide: 'Ruby' - 19 times (~2.4% density) 'madison' - 15 (1.87%) 'madison ruby' - 12 (1.50%) 'tech' - 13 (1.62%) 'conference' - 12 (1.5%)

blaines2• 14 years ago

Haha, You totally missed the point of this post.

egiva4• 14 years ago

No I didn't. I understand the post. I support anyone, anywhere who wants to learn programming and show an interest, especially young women who are under-represented in the industry. I just think that they're promoting Madison Ruby because the piece is highly structured to display a very specific keyword density, and that's typical for promotional work. So my vote is that they're not being honest about the origins of this article. Just an opinion though.

strand• 14 years ago

What exactly are you suspicious of?

cheald• 14 years ago

"Next time, on Search Engine Crawler Internal Monologues!"

nthitz• 14 years ago

Just moved from Madison to the Bay Area bout a week or two ago. Gonna miss that town a lot!

simon3• 14 years ago

I suspect that you won't miss the snow. And certainly not the city's inability to plow anything other than the main roads after a heavy snowstorm.

And I dare you to tell me that you miss the beltline traffic! :-)

dmragone• 14 years ago

“it's okay to not get this and be completely confused”

I'm only 4 months into learning to program, but still think this is one of the most valuable mindsets to have. It's a skill, really, being able to accept that everything I read about might not make complete sense or be familiar enough for me to be able to apply the learnings right away, but that I will understand more each time I try to pick up some new content.

briandoll• 14 years ago

It's humbling to read this, and makes me incredibly proud to know Jim and Jen Remsik, who created and run Madison Ruby.

She wouldn't take advantage of this thread by linking to her event management business, so I will: http://saplingevents.com/

Jen does an incredible job building unique and interesting events and totally gets the important details that make a conference memorable and exciting. If you're thinking of hosting an event, I'd definitely give her a call.

citizenparker• 14 years ago

I was so fortunate as to speak at MadisonRuby in 2011, and I confirm it's a special thing. Jim and Jen have really created something special in the Ruby world, and I haven't seen anything like it. For starters, I've never seen as many talks start with hugs as I have at MadisonRuby.

It's inclusive in a way that puts most uses of that word to shame. I don't know how it happens, either. I want to grow up and be like Jim.

desimcadam• 14 years ago

Awesome! Thanks for sharing this! :) Glad I got to know you there and I look forward to seeing you at this or another conference in the future.

My Madison Ruby Story

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