Sarah Mei

I have a Facebook account on which I have duly locked down the privacy controls (several times, it feels like). In theory, no one can get at my information unless we become Facebook friends.
In practice, I’ve discovered, it’s another story entirely. After spending the better part of ten days, recently, integrating Facebook into another website, [...]

I have a few friends who periodically ask me, “Why don’t you work at Google?” To non-developers, Google seems like a programmer’s paradise – smart people, free food, scooters! and interesting projects to work on. Google does indeed have all of these things.

It’s not enough.

Previous to joining Pivotal Labs, I didn’t do a whole lot of pair programming.
Hoo boy.
It’s been a little over two months since I started, and the number of hours I’ve spent solo programming since then would all fit in one workday. I’ve had some surprising realizations – about myself, my style, and my abilities – [...]

I haven’t had time to finish part 2 of the SQL vs. Relational Model cage match. Instead, I’ve been working on convincing the guys at Pivotal Labs to hire me, and it seems to have finally worked! I start February 1st.
I can’t even tell you how thrilled I am. I try to choose jobs [...]

The relational model underlies all modern relational databases, and it is a thing of beauty.
It defines relations (tables), attributes (columns), tuples (rows), and a whole relational algebra that spells out in detail what you can and cannot do to them. It is logically consistent, and in an odd way almost fractal in the way it [...]

In 2009, over 200 women and girls (and some men!) learned to program in Ruby at my workshops in San Francisco. We’re planning another outreach workshop in the new year, a few weeks after She’s Geeky. Stay tuned for details.
In 2009, I co-founded a nonprofit, and lost my corporate job.
In 2009, my baby turned [...]

You’re Asking The Wrong Question.
I’m in Hawaii for the Aloha on Rails conference. The last session on Monday was a panel moderated by l4rk that included Obie Fernandez, Pat Maddox, Blake Mizerany, and Tammer Saleh. The topic: “Is Agile Too Slow?”
Ostensibly we were there to talk about whether there were any circumstances under which agile [...]

…I’m looking for a new job.
I’d love to find a job where I could write complex, interesting Ruby and/or Rails code four days a week, and work on growing the Ruby community (via the RailsBridge workshops, hackfests, and other new stuff!) one day a week.
I and the rest of the organizers of the Ruby [...]

Please post your comments here on my Teaching Kids article.
I wrote an article for the RailsBridge Teaching Kids site about my experience teaching Ruby to high school girls a few weeks ago. Go read it over there!
That site doesn’t have comments, though, so I’m linking back here because I’d like to hear your comments [...]

Women 2.0’s OSCON mixer hits San Jose tonight! It’s free if you have an OSCON badge (and you can get an exhibit hall pass for free if you go by the convention center). Here are all the details.
I’ve been going to Women 2.0 events on an off for a couple of years. Most of their [...]