I attended MerbDay in Atlanta this weekend, and while enlightening, it was ultimately a blah experience. In all honesty, I feel like I paid $60 to attend a Ruby meetup and get a breakfast and lunch.
The highlight to me was a quick introduction to HAML / SASS. While not strictly Merb related, both look very cool. Still, when I subtract out the cool factor, I’m not sure there’s a big incentive to use them over straight up HTML and CSS. Nonethelesss, very interesting.
So, all in all, I’m glad I learned a little about Merb, but I don’t feel like I’ve gotten any more from this than I could by perusing a HOWTO and following along at home for an hour or so. I guess that’s why this was $60, instead of being a $$$ multi-day training course.
@merbday twitpay -$60 for making me pay for a ruby meetup
Just a little joke. One of the main presenters of MerbDay helped create twitpay. Seriously, I’m glad I came.
Open mouth, insert foot
I’ve been called out in the comments for judging a little too early, and it turns out they’re right. The day picked up near the end, culminating with a great keynote by Yehuda Katz. Plus, $60 for a day full of good info is still pretty cheap, even it’s presented like an extended Ruby meetup. Throw in breakfast, lunch, and free beers afterward (paid for by Rails Machine) and it turns out to be a pretty good day. So, I end up the one with egg on my face for being snarky and prematurely bitching.
Constructive Criticism
In order to be a little less whiny and lessen my troll karma, I’ll offer the following constructive criticism:
I would say to have fewer presentations and perhaps some breakout sessions with small groups writing an app. Make it a hackfest rather than a list of presentations. Teams of 3 and a script to follow, with gurus prowling the room giving help when asked. Maybe that would suck, but I feel like I’d learn more.
Also, I really don’t think the “write code while you’re following along” approach really works. It’s just too hard to stay with the presenter, and it’s too easy to run into small problems (don’t have this-or-that gem installed, small typo, etc.). Plus, if you try to do a pull and catch up with the real repo, you’ll probably encounter conflicts and that will suck.
So, hopefully this explains my complaints a little better. I’ll try to be more constructive and less snarky in the future.
December 6th, 2008 at 11:27 am
It should be noted that this was posted long before the conference was over. Premature judgment much?
I hope you’ll update this after the conference is over.
December 6th, 2008 at 11:33 am
@Jeff
Long before = 6 hours in, 2 hours left.
Besides, I _did_ say I was glad I came. It’s not a bad way to spend the day. If things change, I’ll make sure to update.
December 6th, 2008 at 11:40 am
oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m not personally invested whether you like it or not. Just think it deserves a fair shake
December 6th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Out of curiosity, what could have been done to make Merb Day *not* feel like a Meetup? Have you been to other lower-cost regional Ruby conferences that you felt were worthwhile? What set those apart from Merb Day?
December 6th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Micah,
You’ve been dolling out the hate lately like a Grand Wizard. Did your prescription run out? If you keep it up, the cool kids might not open the circle for you.
Maxwell
December 6th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
@Luigi,
Sorry for the snarky tone. I’ve updated the main post to add a little constructive criticism. I need to be less trolly!
December 6th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
@Micah – Thanks for the feedback, no hard feelings. Those are very good suggestions — a hackfest would have been a great idea.
December 7th, 2008 at 11:25 am
Hey Jeff,
No matter what you will never be able to please everyone, though I’m glad you ended up enjoying it.
I only want to address two things, the first being your distaste for the “extended meetup”, the second being your thoughts on the tutorial.
“I don’t feel like I’ve gotten any more from this than I could by perusing a HOWTO and following along at home for an hour or so.”
Honestly, the biggest part of a conference, besides the technical content and presentations, is the networking and socializing aspects. At home you’re not able to interact with fellow Rubyists the same way and don’t get a chance to really meet and get to know interesting people. It’s going beyond the very essential and creating a community of personal interest.
“I really don’t think the “write code while you’re following along” approach really works. It’s just too hard to stay with the presenter, and it’s too easy to run into small problems (don’t have this-or-that gem installed, small typo, etc.).”
Yes, there are aspects of the format that I didn’t like when we were developing the tutorial and there was always the potential for problems like the ones you mention. However, I think it went well and the particular audience was able to handle it well. We got most of the problems sorted out and most folks were doing just fine.
I really, really like your idea for a hackfest, though, and I think that could’ve been a better format for this introduction/get-your-hands-dirty tutorial session, but our unfamiliarity with these kind of training sessions led us to come up with this solution.
Perhaps next time you can do the training session?
“Plus, if you try to do a pull and catch up with the real repo, you’ll probably encounter conflicts and that will suck.”
This makes me believe that you were not actually following along with the session… (Not that that’s a terrible thing.) The instructions were to have a separate repo to compare against, not modify our repo then pull in our changes… It actually worked very well. We had no conflicts because our repo was just reference, not your working directory. Just thought I’d point that out.
I think you hit the nail on the head, though, when you state “I guess that’s why this was $60, instead of being a $$$ multi-day training course”. We lead busy lives and come up with the content and dedicate our time voluntarily instead of numerous other things we could be doing. It’s a labor of love and though we may not be professional instructors, we put our best effort into it and tried to make it a valuable experience.
Cheers,
Matt
January 3rd, 2009 at 6:05 am
[...] back through some old posts, I see that I’ve become prematurely curmudgeonly. I also tend to judge too quickly, and am then forced to recant and eat crow. Since I’m not a fan of the taste of crow, perhaps [...]