litany against fear

RailsConf 2009 Chris Wansrath Keynote

This is part of my series of notes on RailsConf 2009. Check them all out here.

Chris is going to talk about how to become a Rails rockstar/ninja/etc. Here’s what you need to do: Get a blog. Have an attitude of some sort. Don’t go for the default blog design. Customize it. Choose a tone: just two random adjectives.

Now for content: just write…anything. Start some controversy, bitch at other bloggers’ code, copy content from your older blogs. Lots of this and you’ll become a famous Rails developer. But…famous != good.

Code is what brings developers together: not what people are blogging or known for. Chris went through a story of how he created a YAML library for PHP that helped him get a job. Code…it talks! This is definitely how they found everyone who’s working for GitHub now.

Ruby/SourceForge is not about the code, even with the new redesigns. The process to create a new project on SourceForge is ridiculous: huge description, have to pick a license and even a category. Ridiculous, and unnecessary. No approval process on GitHub. All of this is just ceremony, and they don’t add value.

Get out of the way: reduce friction! Friction wastes energy and is expensive, need to avoid it. A big deal of creating a business: finding those who can help you.

We need more of this…people who contribute more to the community instead of just pushing their own agenda. We don’t want rockstars, they’re just unreliable.