Rails - Sep 2005 - [Fwd: Get to the Point: Ruby and Rails Presentation Slides]

I posted this on Ruby-Talk, but I suppose it''s just as valuable here.

--
John

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Get to the Point: Ruby and Rails Presentation Slides

Hi,

Ryan Platte and I just did a presentation to the Chicago ACM about Ruby
this evening. Our slides are available for others to use here:

http://johnwlong.com/slides/gettothepoint/

Comments and suggestions are welcome. We would like to present this
again in the future, so it would be good to clarify things a little.

Please note: slides are best if viewed in Firefox or Safari.

--
John Long
http://wiseheartdesign.com

Ron Jeffries wrote:
 > Hi John ... cool slides. I''m going through them now. These
comments
 > are those of a first-time reader: I hope they''ll be helpful.
 >
 > At the beginning, I wanted to see the output from the first sample
 > puts statements. I got over it, and whatever you guys said would
 > make the difference.

You are right. I struggled with the amount of information to put on each 
slide and sometimes opted to put less information and explain it rather 
than use multiple slides with verbose output.

 > In the "Make Your Own Block" section ... I think you''re
not really
 > making your own block ... but your own block-processing method, or
 > something like that. The stuff in the squiggles is the block. I
 > don''t know what the right words are. Maybe it doesn''t
matter.

Wow, I totally missed that. I''ve updated both slides as a result of
your
suggestions.

 > Does the comment on dynamic typing get you into any debates? I''d
 > think that in some circles it could. You''ll want to just
sidestep,
 > I''d think. ;->

It didn''t last night. :-) I suppose it depends on how forcefully you 
present it. Our point last night was not that dynamic typing was better, 
but that it had some advantages and was helpful to enlarge your thinking 
in certain areas.

 > I personally find method redefinition to be very scary. Very deep in
 > the bag of tricks: I''m not sure it''s really an asset to
most
 > programmers.

One of the really nice things about method redefinition is the ability 
to patch library code without physically patching the file. If you need 
to fix an issue in a library, copy and paste into a new method 
redefinition, make your changes, and presto! I personally like this sort 
of flexibility.

 > I assume you''re discussing all these topics, time permitting, and
 > saying rational things about them.

Right. We didn''t have a lot of time to polish the slides. Just getting 
the main information down was the important part and we explained things 
as we went along.

 > In the DSL section, the example is from Rails, but Rails isn''t
 > mentioned on the slide. I imagine that it is in your words ... is
 > that the right spelling of conglomorate? My email client thinks its
 > conglomerate.

Conglomerate is correct. Did you see it in one of the slides?

 > The proxy example seems weak to me, and confusing as well because it
 > cleverly uses [] as the method that will be missing. I think this
 > example may lose the audience.

It did lose the audience. I''ve changed it to use the "first"
method instead.

 > The early part of the Rails example should really have a good
"WOW!"
 > factor, showing how you can just talk to the class in a cool way.
 > (Also addresses the question I recently sent to the rails list, so I
 > should have figured it out from the book ... ;-> )

I''m not sure I follow you. Are you suggesting that we do something 
different here, or talking about the way the presentation was done?

 > Wow, and then you do a live demo! Excellent! I bet they love it.

They did. Ryan did the demo and he got the applause. :-)

 > Bottom line, it''s an excellent presentation. I''m sure
you''ll do well
 > with it. Maybe some of the comments above will help you fit it to
 > those who read it without the narrators.

Thanks very much for the feedback. I''ve posted a new version online:

http://johnwlong.com/slides/gettothepoint/

--
John

Justin Forder wrote:
 > 1) showing how the DSL magic is achieved would be useful (I''m
thinking
 > of the trace_attr example in Jim Weirich''s OSCON presentation:
 >    http://onestepback.org/articles/10things/page027.html )

Thanks for the example. I may consider sharing something like this on 
the next go round, but as it was I feel simply mentioning the feature 
was what was neaded for our audience. We had so much content to share it 
was hard to make it through all of it and still have time for the demo.

 > 2) Here: http://johnwlong.com/slides/gettothepoint/slide/view/21.html
 > your viewers are given info that they have to remember to understand the
 > next slide. It might be a bit of a squeeze, but it would be good to
 > combine the two slides.

We ended up having to toggle back and forth between the two slides in 
order to explain it. I''m not sure how I can fit more code on the same 
slide though. I''d really rather not change the font size.

Thanks for the feedback!

--
John

Rob Sanheim wrote:
 > Nice presentation.  What did you use to create the slides?  Is that an
 > export from a "real" slide app or something like S5 format?

I did the design and the CSS and we created a Rals backend to handle the 
templates. :-) I''d like to release a presentation kit at some point for
branded Ruby presentations. Perhaps after we finish the Ruby-Lang 
redesign...

--
John Long
http://wiseheartdesign.com

On Thursday, September 15, 2005, at 10:31:15 PM, John W. Long wrote:

 >> In the DSL section, the example is from Rails, but Rails
isn''t
 >> mentioned on the slide. I imagine that it is in your words ... is
 >> that the right spelling of conglomorate? My email client thinks its
 >> conglomerate.
> Conglomerate is correct. Did you see it in one of the slides?
It''s in a table definition somewhere.

Ron Jeffries
www.XProgramming.com
Don''t confuse more precise with better.  -- Brian Marick

On Thursday, September 15, 2005, at 10:31:15 PM, John W. Long wrote:

 >> The early part of the Rails example should really have a good
"WOW!"
 >> factor, showing how you can just talk to the class in a cool way.
 >> (Also addresses the question I recently sent to the rails list, so I
 >> should have figured it out from the book ... ;-> )
> I''m not sure I follow you. Are you suggesting that we do something
> different here, or talking about the way the presentation was done?
Just saying it''s cool.

Ron Jeffries
www.XProgramming.com
Know what I pray for? The strength to change what I can, the inability to
accept what I can''t and the incapacity to tell the difference. --Calvin
and Hobbes

<snip>
>>Conglomerate is correct. Did you see it in one of the slides?
>>    
>>
</snip>

http://johnwlong.com/slides/gettothepoint/slide/view/17.html

Mike Gilbert wrote:
> <snip>
> 
>>> Conglomerate is correct. Did you see it in one of the slides?
>>>   
> 
> </snip>
> 
> http://johnwlong.com/slides/gettothepoint/slide/view/17.html
> 
This is interesting. That example is copied straight from the Rails 
documentation.

--
John Long
http://wiseheartdesign.com