help build local Ruby Brigades

I was just at RubyConf*MI, and got to talk to the folks from the SB.rb, columbus.rb, and the nacent toledo.rb. It was awfully cool to finally meet them. Maybe I’ll get out to one of their meetings sometime.

I just saw an announcement about the Montreal Ruby Users Group, which started me thinking …

There are 5-8 ruby brigades up in the North East. Wouldn’t it be great if they could work together to pull of a regional RubyConf? Or to share speakers? Or just to coordinate meetings?

Since several other places are in a similar position, I thought I’d better do something about it—I decided to start a google group:
http://groups.google.com/group/Ruby-Brigades

sign up, get involved, help Ruby Brigades grow!

Great Utah Ruby Users Group meeting last night!

Jamis Buck talked about switchtower, I talked a little bit about r43 and the Ruby Programming Shop, and the dozen or so people there all seemed to have a good time hanging out and being geeky about ruby.

but local ruby brigades really are the best way to learn about Ruby. Take the recent columbus.rb meeting for example.

They were able to talk Jim Weirich (a long time Ruby master) into driving a couple of hours to make a presentation at their meeting. He ended up previewing both of his OsCon presentations for them. Here’s what Robert Stevenson from the columbus.rb had to say about it:

Jim is a great, engaging speaker and everyone in the room seemed to really enjoy his presentation. DI is brain-bulging for a good number of people, but Jim did a great job showing the differences between Java DI and Ruby DI that allowed you to understand just what Ruby gives you for free when it comes to DI.

. . .

After a quick 10 minute break, Jim started his Ruby for Java
Programmers which was very well received from all of the Java
programmers in the room. Hearing/watching this presentation as a Java programmer and a new Ruby programmer really clicks the benefits that Ruby has as a dynamic language over Java (and others). Jim really seemed to be passionate during this talk since he admitted to the group later that he programs in Java for most of the day in his daily job and usually has to wait till he gets home at night to get his “hands clean” with Ruby code. It is also interesting to note that only one non-CRB member left during the break, so Jim was still speaking to a full house.

It doesn’t get much better than that. (For Robert’s full message, please see Google Groups.

Tim Germer just made a post on his blog about the June pdx.rb meeting. From his tone, it sounds like it was his first meeting, but I think he’s hooked:

It was great to be surrounded by such smart people – there was easily over a dozen people in attendance. The experience was like grabbing a really challenging book off the library shelf and diving in; ambitious to learn new words, etc.

When’s your next Ruby Brigade meeting? I’ll be going to one in Utah next week.

It looks like there are two more Ruby Brigades meeting soon. Columbus.rb and the Phoeniz.rb (though this one seems to have been around for a while). It’s good to see the growing number of Ruby Brigades.

I’m hoping the next step is to have more regional cooperation—like the Seattle.rb, pdx.rb, and Vancouver group’s upcoming code fest.

In the last week, I’ve seen a new group pop up in Omaha, NE and Tulsa, OK. The Omaha.rb will be meeting on Monday, May 2nd from 7-9PM (directions on their web page). I don’t know when the Tulsa.rb will meet, but hopefully it’ll be soon.

By the way, the Utah Ruby Users Group is set to start meeting on the third Wednesday of the month (May 25th). The Seattle.rb is meeting tonight. Wow! That’s a lot of Rubyists.

We don’t have a topic lined up yet, but I wanted to get the announcement out. We’ve done a lot of Rails stuff recently, so I think we might focus on something else this time (doesn’t mean we won’t spend some time with everyone’s favorite framework though).

We’ll probably spend some time prepping for the May HackFest.

As always, more information (including directions and meeting times) can be had at our web page.

In related news, both the pdx.rb and kent.rb meetings went off well recently. They had an average attendance of about 27 (of course, the pdx.rb having 50 attendees rather skews that number).

First, it looks like there’s some growth around a Utah Ruby users group. And talking about it on the mailing list drew out a mention of the Phoenix.rb (yay!)

Second, the Seattle.rb is going to have it’s supplemental meeting soon. On Sturday, April 16th at 3PM in the Kent Regional Library. I’m not sure what we’re going to talk about yet, but it should be fun.

the Seattle.rb is meeting tonight (3/31). There are three ruby projects we’ll be talking about/working on. Directions are available from www.zenspider.com/Seattle.rb.

We normally meet on the last Thursday of each month. Maybe I can make an announcement with more lead time in April.