You’re welcome to bring any sort of Ruby-related project! The theme for the evening is Javascript testing, following on this month’s monthly meetup. But I won’t make you write any Javascript if you don’t want to.

The peninsula has all kinds of neat hack events like SuperHappyDevHouse and various Hacker Dojo events. But I hate driving all the way down there just to hang out with hackers and get something done on a project. There are plenty of hackers in San Francisco. There might even be more of the type of hackers I want to hang out with.

So I’ve decided to host a monthly hack night, to be held on the Tuesday following the monthly SF Ruby meetup. My employer, Pivotal Labs, has graciously volunteered their space. Since tonight is the SF Ruby meetup, the next hack night is next Tuesday, April 27th, from 7-9:30 (ish).

RSVP now! See you next Tuesday.

Short version: it was a lot of work.

A lot of people have asked us about this, though, so it seemed worth distilling. The slides don’t convey everything I talked about. In the next few weeks I’d like to try putting together a blog post that does a better job. But for now, here they are.

Update (3/6/2010): MP3 audio is now available – thanks SCALE folks! Also, I’ve posted a PDF version of the slides for those of you without flash.

LEARN ME

…is now open for registration. Last year Sarah Allen and I did three workshops for women and this year we’re going for four. So, if you’d like to learn Rails and can come BOTH Friday, February 26th in the evening AND Saturday, February 27th during the day, go sign up! There are only a few spots left.

And yep, still free.

We’re also seeking Rails developers (of any gender) to assist as TAs. Tell us about that here. Past TAs and teachers have found it quite rewarding. Plus you get a drink ticket for the afterparty.

And finally, some logistics: it’ll be in an office space in downtown San Francisco, near transit. Next week we’ll send out the exact address. We’ll have informal childcare and space for pumping or nursing – please tell us if you think you’ll be using those services when you register.

See you there!

LEARN ME

This is a two-day event open to total programming novices, system administrators, and developers in other languages. In other words – everyone! All the details are on the meetup pages.

RSVP yes for both Friday and Saturday to reserve your spot.
Day 1, Friday 7/31: http://www.meetup.com/sfruby/calendar/10804417
Day 2, Saturday 8/1: http://www.meetup.com/sfruby/calendar/10804438

As before, men are welcome to register as the +1 of a woman doing the workshop. So guys, I know there’s a woman somewhere in your life who you’ve always thought would make a great programmer. Recruit her and you can come along too.

The workshop includes dinner on Friday, and breakfast and lunch on Saturday. Child care and private space for nursing and/or pumping are available. Partners are welcome to stay with the kids but that’s not required.

We are looking for experienced Rails developers of all genders to volunteer at the event. This time we have a separate volunteer coordinator so that things run more smoothly. Volunteering will be fun and educational, plus it’ll be a great networking opportunity. Stay tuned for info on how to get on the volunteer list.

The format will be similar to our first workshop: Friday night is a mixer and installfest. Attendees bring their laptops, and, with the help of our volunteers, install anything they’re missing to run Rails. Saturday is the workshop itself, starting with a short general presentation at 10am. Then we’ll break into smaller groups for the workshop itself. Lunch is included, and child care and nursing/pumping space is available.

If you came to the first workshop, you’re welcome to return for this one! Newcomers are likewise encouraged to register. When you register, you’ll be asked to answer some questions that will help us figure out how to allocate the class space we have.

The June event generated some great word-of-mouth, so I’m expecting this one to fill up quickly once registration is open. To find out when you can register, watch this space, check out the new site sfrubyworkshops.com, and join the low-traffic announcement-only mailing list (hosted by Google):

Lastly, we’re looking for sponsors to help us make this event fantastic. If your company or organization would like to assist, please email rubyworkshop at gmail dot com, which goes to both me and Sarah Allen.

UPDATE: The fine folks at Engine Yard are buying lunch. Thanks EY!!

If you haven’t been to a hack session before, make this your first! A hack session is unstructured time to work on a project or learn something new from the other attendees. Bring your laptop and a project to work on, continue the suggest-o-rama app we started at the workshop, or find a project once you get here. Usually there are at least a few startup people hacking on something cool. Maybe you’re one of them.

We’ll probably have some impromptu presentations on whatever people seem interested in. There’s child care, and older kids with projects of their own are welcome as participants. My 4-year-old is bringing her XO and has volunteered to show anyone who asks how to play “Implode.”

Register over at the SF Ruby Meetup site. See you there!

As we got into it we realized it was really, really ambitious. But I am profoundly thrilled to report that the SF Ruby community came together this weekend and made it happen.

O HAI NEW RAILS PPL

It was really, really incredible. More than 60 people spent their Friday evening installing Rails. Then they came back on Saturday and learned how to use it. A lot of them had never programmed before, but now they have Github accounts and a URL on Heroku. Watch out world!

I’ll be following up in this space with more lessons learned (and some further events), but for now, I want to share some feedback we got last night from one of the participants:

In addition to learning way more than I expected, I enjoyed the tone of the entire weekend. It was the only attitude-free, newbie-safe and mama-friendly tech event I have ever attended.

There were lots of things I could have organized better – projectors, class allocations, installation instructions – but I’m really happy that these folks got to experience a bit of the Ruby MINASWAN. In fact, I think something just got in my eye. *sniff*

So a million thanks to our sponsors, our volunteers, and the entire SF Ruby community for making this happen. Seriously. You ROCK.

So I’ll be offering a free workshop in San Francisco to reach out to women who want to learn Ruby and Rails. Sarah Allen and I are spearheading with the assistance of the San Francisco Ruby Meetup and Devchix and (your org here?).

The first one is June 12th and 13th – Friday night is a mixer and installfest, then Saturday is the workshop and hacking space. We’ll go from nothing to a fully-operational web application on the internet (mwa ha haaa!).

Registration will be open next week – check back for details then.

I’m posting this today, though, because RailsBridge, a grassroots effort to make the Rails community welcoming to everyone, is launching today. We’ll be releasing the slides, talking points, and logistics info for these workshops (oh yes, there will be more) under their umbrella.

Now, I’m a developer, not a trainer or an event planner, but…they’re all nails, right? And Github is a mighty fine hammer. Fork the kit and use it to your own ends. Maybe, if I’m feeling generous, I’ll merge you back in. But my goal is to have a continuously updated presentation that any Rails developer can pick up and use to run a similar event in their city.

Want to help? Maybe you actually know something about how to run a workshop like this? Get in touch and let’s talk.