Re: Potential Brit ruby meeting formally Chunky Bacon

Ruby
1

Similar situation for most of the brits going to Denver!

I’ll organise something if people want to meet up, but it seems there’s
already so much going on that it’s not necessary?

Again I am indeed a ruby n00by and even moreso to the ruby community,
apologies if stepping on any toes…

Gem

2

Brighton based, and have been trying to flush out a few others for a
regular get together. Am definitely up for other meet ups though. I
occasionally make the train journey up to LRUG.

(is anybody counting?)

3

Cameron, Gemma (UK) wrote:

Similar situation for most of the brits going to Denver!

I’ll organise something if people want to meet up, but it seems there’s
already so much going on that it’s not necessary?

Again I am indeed a ruby n00by and even moreso to the ruby community,
apologies if stepping on any toes…

Heavens, I’m certain you haven’t stepped on any toes… unless it was
some of those people with, you know, excessively large toes.

There’s no reason there can’t be more than one Ruby group within
X miles of each other. They can merge or stay separate or whatever
the people want. A European group or a London group doesn’t preclude
any other group from existing.

In Austin, there is a Ruby group and a Rails group. The latter hardly
is aware of the former. But whatever. :wink:

Hal

4

On Fri, 27 Oct 2006, Hal F. wrote:

some of those people with, you know, excessively large toes.
Sideshow Bob uses Ruby??? :slight_smile:

There’s no reason there can’t be more than one Ruby group within
X miles of each other. […]

We need more of them. Go ahead and organize something.

require “british_public_transport_rant”

There’ll be people who can’t get to some given meeting wherever it is
put, so the more the better.

    Hugh
5

On 10/27/06, [email protected] [email protected] wrote:

should probably stop :slight_smile: But it’s very hard for people to travel to a
meeting that’s more than a few miles away, especially after a work
day, and therefore having more rather than fewer groups makes sense,
if there’s interest.

Having just been part of the (very amicable) splitting of URUG into
two meeting groups (with a third on the way), I agree whole heartedly
with Dave and Hal. Let me give some URUG background that might
be mined for advice.

URUG is the Utah Ruby U. Group, our mailing list sites at just
over 100 members. We used to meet midway (roughly) between
Salt Lake City and Provo (they’re about 45 minutes drive time apart),
and we had ~30 people showing up to meetings. During the spring,
we decided to break up into the UtahValley.rb (Provo and surrounding
areas) and the slc.rb. the combined attendance is probably around
35 or 40 now. We took a bit of a dip at first, but seem to have
climbed out of that and all of the groups are doing pretty well.

We meet on different nights and some folks go to both meetings.
We keep planning on regular joint meetings (quarterly, or
something), but they just haven’t happened yet. If it hasn’t
happened by then, next May, I’m going to throw a URUG.rbbq!
We’re also working on a MountainWest RubyConf which we’re
hoping to run in mid-March 2007.

It looks like there’s another group brewing up in the Layton/Ogden
area (30 minutes or so north of Salt Lake City), and we may
end up with one down in St. George (4 hours south) before too
long as well. Both of these groups (and any others that end up
forming) are welcome in the URUG umbrella. Hopefully having
an umbrella group will help us share ideas (and speakers),
organize joint activities, and keep on growing throughout Utah.

As for events: I’m of the opinion that these, too, should proliferate.
Just watch for conflicts in time and place and naming.

In addition to watching out so that you avoid the bad stuff that
David’s mentioned, look out for opportunities to work together.
Two or three Ruby brigades can do a lot better job at putting
together a hacking weekend, or a regional conference than
one group can.

6

Hi –

On Fri, 27 Oct 2006, Hal F. wrote:

some of those people with, you know, excessively large toes.

There’s no reason there can’t be more than one Ruby group within
X miles of each other. They can merge or stay separate or whatever
the people want. A European group or a London group doesn’t preclude
any other group from existing.

Definitely. Of course if you start calling your group LRUG, you
should probably stop :slight_smile: But it’s very hard for people to travel to a
meeting that’s more than a few miles away, especially after a work
day, and therefore having more rather than fewer groups makes sense,
if there’s interest.

As for events: I’m of the opinion that these, too, should proliferate.
Just watch for conflicts in time and place and naming.

David