Rails Pacific 2016 - Make Money and Enjoy Freedom Creating a Software Business by Ryan MacInnes

I'm here to teach you about how to start a software business
i should mention i'm from los angeles california by the way
first of all why should you trust me i am the founder and CEO of juicer . i owe
one io is a aggregate our social media aggregator an
embeddable social media aggregator
so what the hell is a social media aggregator essentially would you throw
out you to do is to connect all of your brand of your personal social media
accounts and it will automatically pull in any new post you have and you give
you a little snippet of code simply can put in your website so it'll display all
of these posts and beautiful feed
so here's an example this is actually from the Golden Globes com you guys with
the Golden Gloves is but it like sort of like a crappy version of the oscars in
the US but still very popular and actually this this feed itself
about 20 million views over two day . but you can see the different social
media types you get twitter facebook Instagram etc so it makes it really easy
to connect all these accounts and embed them into website it also often plan to
use their live events and concerts
you know with hash tags so people can you can see a sort of aggregated to be
anywhere you are and participate in a conversation and every once again
so firstly why would you want to start your own business all
as William all its best side
freedom is the number one and most obvious reasons start your own business
for a couple examples they spent the last two months of the last six living
in Los Angeles where I live
the other four months I spent traveling around the world
I never set an alarm I get to work whenever the hell I feel again and I get
to live wherever I want as well
secondly also pretty obvious is that the amount of ever you put in is linked to
your pay and a full-time job there's no incentive to work to the best of your
ability necessarily apart from worried about getting fired so general you will
work to a level that it will keep you from getting fired
but there's no incentive to go above and beyond also your salary is significantly
less than the value you provide your employer and so what this means is that
you are good deal for your employer or you cost less than you are bringing in
for the company and this is especially true for developers who can easily work
earned the business they work for millions of dollars and i'm willing to
bet that your salary is a millions of dollars
finally no one's ever gotten rich working for somebody else
not the being rich is important and it's certainly nice but it's really nice to
realize that your earning potential is limitless compared to the five percent
yearly raise you can hope for at your job or ten percent raise you can hope
for from get this from switching on
obviously there's a few guys like a finance and that sort of thing and make
over a million dollars here but most developers them
so firstly i'm going to talk about my history prior to juicer just so you guys
can get an idea of how what led me to starting juicer
so I guess that are a degree in microbiology and i started programming
because i wanted to build a product and i couldn't convince anyone else to do it
for me and i was a college student so I don't have any money to paint one so i
got turned on the rails and I build the product
well really what i did was i slowly learned how to program built in rails
didn't really know what I was doing
finished it through it all out sorry overbuilt it a lot better and then sort
of launched a little bit
send it to some of my friends and i think i got maybe about a hundred people
to sign up for it but with that led to was one of the people who signed up with
somebody I don't know and he said hey like the site you build can you build me
a site as well and i have five thousand dollars to pay you with at the time I
said mommy I'm sure but inside I was screaming because no one has ever
offered me five thousand dollars for anything in my life at that point and so
I felt the guy is like and after that somebody else contact me and you know
slowly but surely this is turned into a lucrative for some lucrative side career
as a freelancer
so I I started realizing the in my free time I had a full-time job this whole
time as well and just building sites when I good or when people wanted me to
start doing a little more consulting work a little bit more serious sort of
realizing i guess and whenever I had free time I would build random various
products in my what you know whatever sort of idea that came to my head
so the rest of this talk I guess is going to be structured with sort of i'm
just gonna talk about what would like to do sir where did I come up with the idea
and how do I build it and you know how do i promote it and how do we get to the
point where at the same
I'll talk to about the point we're at today to at some point as well
so the first thing you need to do when starting your own business has come up
with an idea and this is arguably the hardest thing of the whole process
coming up with the idea of a juicer worked was I had a string of freelance
clients for a long time who asked me to put a social media peed in their website
they wanted to aggregate all of the different social media accounts and put
them on the website so the first time a client asked me to do this i googled
social media bead and i found a service they did this already and I said great
I don't have to build it myself somebody else can do it so i found a service and
services called teams and they charge ten dollars a month to put a social
media bead on your website so i got the clients to sign up for it and they doing
on the website name is great and I had clients after client and the client
would ask me for social media feed on their website so i always brought them
back to 10 times those ten ten ten ten dollars a month it's great
and then in about half way through 2014
I had a freelance client who was that hey I want to watch me pee on my website
is a great let's go to 10 and i went to tent i have probably been there about
six months or style and I found that they had raised their prices from ten
dollars a month to two hundred fifty dollars a month to mention - they've
sent raised their prices to five hundred dollars a month and they may have raised
even higher at this point so the client obviously this idea that we can pay for
that we're not going to pay that much just have a social media and be on our
website but can you build it for us
I light bulb went off in my head I said not only I can build this but what I'm
going to do instead is I'm going to build a service and you guys are sign up
for it
so that that's sort of where juicer came from and i had my first client before I
you know a single line of code
so now i'm going to talk about a couple of different ways
a couple of different ways you can come up with ideas hopefully the first and
most obvious is to solve your own problem
and so you guys are all developers then you've probably seen a myriad of
developer tools out there the sort of been started as products that will
hopefully make your life easier
so this is sort of the most common route taken with developers is solve a problem
you have
and this is great because you're very close to the problem so you have a good
idea of what the solution should be the problem of course with this is that it's
very crowded market there's many many developer tools and I think developers
are especially used to being a bitch sort of startup ideas and product ideas
and we're a little bit numb to it
the second way to do this is to solve a problem for others
so what what i mean by this is somebody who has a problem that's not a problem
that you share
so for example maybe you decide you want to build a restaurant reservation
management tool you guys presumably don't own restaurant so this isn't a
problem that you have specifically which can be great because you can really sort
of tap into markets that don't typically get the sort of attention that
oftentimes like developers down
but of course the problem with this is that you're further away from the actual
problem and the only way to really get to the core of what the problem is that
you're trying to solve is to talk to your customers and oftentimes the
constant with the customers think they want and what they actually want are
very different and sometimes have trouble communicating that
and thirdly which is sort of the route I took producer is this other problem for
something up so i have many many clients who all wanted social media feeds and so
I knew that this was a market that existed because somebody out there
needed multiple people i don't need it
so at the very least i thought i could sell these two other developers who have
the same
the same problems I do is that their clients are asking for social media
feeds for the website but they they can pay five hundred dollars a month to
these so when you come up with an idea i think is very important to start small
and what I'm talking about here is starts start with a small idea
so you want to build something that only a few people need but those people
really need it
so I didn't build a social media aggregator because i thought everyone in
the world makes the social media aggregator but there are certain
businesses that would like to include something like that on their website and
so I thought I would build something like that because i know there's lots of
businesses out there that have this need
but they don't have five hundred dollars months to throw the problem so I mean
so the next point I'll make is that I don't even get something to make it
better to make something that a few people loved a lot of people like so
what I mean by this is sort of the same thing I was talking about before is
focus on a leash and a small niche is good and it seems counterintuitive
because you when you focus on each it doesn't really seem like there's
anywhere to grow but i'll remind you that Microsoft started as a by creating
a basic interpreters were at the altar computer and seventies so looking like
this up now and they started with extreme
the next thing when coming up with an idea is to not worry about competitors
and I think the normal reaction when you see somebody else is already doing an
idea that you have
it's not to bother I think it's very important to ignore this feeling betters
me a couple things competitors mean that there is a market already so that if
somebody is doing the authority it means that there's a need for this out in the
world
Apple isn't the first company to ever make a computer by any means but they
did the best and are they're arguably the most successful computer company in
the world and juices started out with just a single competitor which was 10th
but it turns out there's a lot of companies out there that do which is it
does like me way more than you think there's got to be 50 plus in the world
and if I known that when i first started i probably would have been extremely
discouraged but luckily I was pretty lazy and didn't do very much research
and I mean so what if i had it was it's entirely possible that i wouldn't have
bothered but i'll tell you what it doesn't matter because there are a lot
of competitors out there but users doing just fine once you come up with the idea
i think it's very important that you name it and it seems very counter
intuitive as well but there's a few reasons you want to do this one is
because when you come up with a name for your product that makes it real
it makes it more real in your mind and you can start taking a little bit more
seriously
number two we get to the next step which is built it you're gonna be typing my
name a lot
when you program it so it's good just so you don't have to go do some search and
replace it if you decide you're changing them later
and finally it's good to have a do domain they have already purchased that
way when you want you can launch immediately and you don't have to sort
of lawful over what we're going to name in or what domain we're going to get
something is very important to sort of do these these relatives seemingly
simple tasks first before you write a single line of code
so the next step and the part of the you guys will excel at is build it so i
should note here that I'm not an especially good developer but what I am
good at is sort of starting a project from scratch and seeing it through to
some sort of deployables safe
I'm not going to talk too much about how to actually program because it's very
highly dependent but I
if you guys don't have a lot of practice or starting a probably starting the
project from scratch and getting it to a boil state then i highly recommend just
giving it a shot and trying it out because I know like you guys were pretty
big companies you probably a very specific tasks we work on you don't
necessarily get to work on the whole application
so the first thing I'll say about building it is
start small again OH - OH the next thing start small quite a bit and what you're
building here is the smallest possible possible product and you've probably
heard the term before MPP which stands for minimum viable product and what that
is is a product that provides the the most small atomic unit of usefulness and
obviously defining that is very hard to do
depending on what it is you're trying to build but I think it's really really
important to keep it as small as possible and so when I build juicer
I I built it in rails and I built using javascript and I knew you had to do a
couple things because I had a client telling me specifically what I needed to
do you need to have facebook twitter and instagram integrations and it needed to
be able to embed in their website that's all the client cared about but I needed
to do a few more things so that the client could then sign up for it so it
had to have a web interface had a complication and had to have a stripe
integration so that I could accept payment for my customers and has it that
was all I did
next thing I recommend is to design it yourself and I know this may be a
horrifying but to some of you but I promise you it's not too bad you all
learn how to be developers so i can assure you can all learn how to be
designers as well first I'll give you a couple of recommendations when it comes
to designing things but my number one thing is no bother with photoshop just
design in the browser using CSS if you guys don't know CSS you can also learn
that very quickly and easily use a couple basic design concepts like white
space and alignment
I won't go into too much detail about how to design something well because I
don't know honestly but you can make something look decent announced and this
is really important I think to design it yourself because it will really get you
into the nitty-gritty of how it should work
and what's the ideal user blow and how high did you decide to work overall and
it will really help you connect to the user your customer
hopefully and give you a sense of what they have to do to get your service
toward the next thing i'll say when one building it is to start download
deadline
I think this is really important because it's really easy to keep working and
adding features and doing more and more and really putting out the concept of
launching because i don't know about you guys but its developers the thing I'm
most comfortable doing is programming and all that other stuff is not
programming and the more I can keep programming the better in my mind
so for a few general rules of thumb I'll say if you have if you have a full time
to dedicate to your business that you're starting give yourself two weeks to get
too many people in that sounds like an insanely short period of time and if you
don't if you have a full-time job and you're going to do this interested in
years
three-time yourselves for weeks anything else after that
throw it out if it's if if you can't do it in that time
it's not important for the MVP and this will really help you focus and sort of
lean it lean your product down to exactly what it needs to be so the next
step after you build it
its launch it and i highly recommend launching it as soon as possible you
want to get this thing out in front of users and have users using it or not
using it
get an idea of what your user base how your user base is going to respond to it
and they are at all
so i'll talk a little bit about how i launched user so i originally launched
juicer and I got my one client to sign out behind integrated in their site
pretty quickly and then i decided i want to promote a little bit more so I went
to read it and I went on to two separate it's because the first thing I did is I
thought about who are my clients and in my room I customers and my mind
number one client was other web developers like me
other consultants or freelancers or people working companies who have been
tasked with heading a social media feed to a client's website
number two was social media marketers themselves so go directly straight to
the source
so when i read it and i found two subreddits that are exactly that's our
webinar social media and so from there
somebody found the site they liked it and they posted product onto and I don't
know product on was at the time this is mid-2014 so I think they have just
launched so I remember somebody telling me it was on product and I was like a
look at and I kind of told me like it was a really big deal
ok don't know what that is exactly by product and actually turned out to be
really great
so hopefully i can give you to use or general rules of thumb that I've learned
from this
but the most important thing I think it's a figure out who your customer is
and where they are and this sort of all comes
it's really kind of all part of step 1 which is coming up with an idea but it's
really knowing at least trying to formulate your head
do you think your customer is and I'm figure out where they are so i guess i'd
read it is a great place for that because there's a subreddit for
basically every person every type of person or every career so chances are
you'll be able to find a subreddit that pertains to your customer race over to
use hacker news
news ycombinator com which is really great if you're building a sort of
programmers centric tool but be careful because they can be pretty harsh and
negative
it's kind of scaring number three is product on
like I said it's probably the best in terms of getting your users because
everyone who gets a problem newsletters or just really interested in new
products of all times
but nowadays i think pretty sure there's a waiting list and it can be a little
bit difficult to get on there so the better way to get on there is to build a
really good product and finally whatever your customers
so like I said the first thing you have to do is forget our customer is and then
the next places to put it there so if your customer is not a person like
pastas developers and spend all day online
I can have to go offline and find them and and tell them about your business
them you know
so conventions their place of business giving calls emails showing up in person
all of these things sounds scary but they're totally valid method for getting
customers before getting customers like i said so when one side launches write
it down product on and hacker news or not and i read it and you know it did
pretty well it had a couple few days where i had a few hundred signups I
think
and after that just growth
basically all the way down to zero you know maybe one user a day so I realized
that I couldn't be continually launching it on all these sites so i had to come
up with a more solid way of your customer base so i put I i did so by
focusing on a few things and some of these are gonna be a little
counterintuitive because I think a lot of the time when you hear about Rose
hacking and growing company
you sort of get the start up mentality which is growing as fast as possible you
know you want to do the hockey stick right and I didn't do that would you sir
we grew slowly but settling so the first thing we did was we focus on SEO and
those who don't know
SEO is search engine optimization making yourself throw up higher on google
essentially and I knew nothing about SEO
I knew that it was a thing but i had no idea how to do it
so first thing I did was google a lot of stuff about how to get better at SEO and
i've included a lot of the more useful links that i found in the show notes but
essentially the number one thing is you want to focus on keywords and get your
site to be really really fast and so I mean optimization is great and that's a
whole topic into itself so i don't really talk about it but you want to
make your site
super super pass and then secondly sort of like coming up with an idea and
coming up with a customer bases you want to focus on you want to determine what
search results you want to show up in so what are your keywords that you're going
after you
and a great way to do this is to use the Google Adwords Keyword tool and
essentially what this does is allows you typically use it to purchase google
adwords will show up for certain search results but it does two things that are
really important that are relevant SEL is it will tell you the the competition
of that combination of keywords and it will tell you the search frequencies
will tell you how many times a month
those particular combinations of words to search so ideally what you want is a
search term that is as low competition and high search for equal chances are
you're not gonna be able to find this because they're very very rare
what's better than in this case
like I said with the whole idea of starting small if you want to find
something that has both the low competition and low search frequency so
if it's only a few people are searching for that amount
that's okay because those people probably desperately need what you're
offering another thing to focus on is the concept of long tail keywords and
what this is is like very long and complex and specific strings of
characters for you know very detailed search results they're very specific
so a great example for juicer was how to embed a social media feeds into Shopify
site
you know there's probably 20 people a month and search for that but those 20
people desperately want we're offering
so we sort of come up with a couple combinations of things like that where
you know various different sites and just sort of think about what I would
search if I was a different customer type and so my one really genius thought
when it comes to SEO and the thing I think that made as you're working more
for us than anything else was bothering a free plan and I didn't really mention
it before it was a juicer is SAS business software as a service so
essentially what that means is that our customers are paying customers pay for
monthly pay a monthly fee and I get to use our product and definitely as long
as they keep going
but there's also a freak here so it's got more limited functionality that
allows you to sign up and test it out and it's free forever
so a lot of people who can't afford to spend anything on this service but they
still want to social media feed on their site and we allow them to do so
the one caveat is that it has juicer bringing it and so this was sort of my
my genius sort of double edged SEO insight is that not only are is painted
sign up for a paid account incentive to get rid of the juicer bringing out of
your feed
black badges are bringing also is links on other people sites that are linking
back to juicer and each one of those increases our SEO geez
so obviously that's not going to work for every type of business but I think
there's something like that or just about every product that some sort of
hacker or you know sort of light bulb inside that everyone can have the next
thing I focus on was content marketing and content marketing is essentially
writing blog posts and essentially this is just a subset of SEO and so like I
said a great blog post that ended up writing was how to add a juicer social
media feed to amplify site you'll notice that the titles is how to add a juicer
social media
so it turns out one of the keywords we went after with social media feed or so
visit this is great for two reasons one because it increases your SEO Jews as
well you know anyone who searches for Shopify social media is going to find us
and two is because it actually teaches something to users and it's useful to
someone who finds it will then actually be able to follow along
do you say and then the problem solved and they're happy and you always want to
make your customers happy
the one sort of my one sort of genius in sight as well with with content
marketing was as juicer
I knew but virtually nothing about the social media marketing so and we were a
company that that's what we do is be provided a tool for social media
marketing so it's a little embarrassing to have a twitter account but had 50
followers and maybe even less
so I sort of wrote a series of blog posts about our journey into social
media marketing and sort of like what I learned what I tried and what worked and
dip downward and it ended up working out really well because people who are
searching for like how do i grow my Twitter followers then come to us they
would learn something about that and then as well
oh by the way juicer will help you with this - so it's sort of like was like it
you know another sort of two pronged approach to growing our customer base
the next thing we did was we built a plug-in or an add-on and the first
plug-in that we build was for wordpress and so WordPress is for those who don't
know you probably all know like a crappy PHP forum or blog framework three sites
so i had to write PHP code which was nightmarish but it was ended up being
great because for a few reasons because one we could submit it to the wordpress
plug-in directory immediately and the WordPress plug-in directory is super
easy to optimize the search you essentially just put a list of all the
words you want to show up for and then you just immediately show up on can
search for those so anyone who is using wordpress oftentimes when the install
plugin they don't go to Google they just go directly to the WordPress directory
in the circle mayor so basically overnight we were showing up at the top
of the WordPress plug-in directory
which is great and you know it's really great because WordPress anyone who's
looking in the WordPress plug-in directory is building a site so those
you're also customers right there like have people who need to address to the
site but they're building right now
and the last thing I recommend and I didn't have to do this because my
business is online only
but you want to hit the street if your customers aren't online
you're gonna have to go talk to him in your life you talking you're talking to
our customers step number five is that your customer so you build the product
you've launched it and you taking some steps towards getting growing your user
base
so when when we were surgeries are obviously didn't have very many
customers we have a few people that signed up here and there but we almost
immediately after launch put up a contact page and email address on the
site and I don't think for the first couple weeks
anyone contacted is really but I can sort of observe how people were using
the site you know people don't want my family and friends and just signed up to
be nice and and I would reach out and talk to them and see you know what they
thought about it
the sort of email them and see if they have any thoughts one way or another
about user
most people going to respond to me but if you did and if you give me a really
great insights and so during the same time you know people start slowly
trickling in the SEO SEO takes a long time to take it back dogs that have
negative three or four months before we probably got any users from google
search and we got a few more from WordPress because that happened quite a
bit more quickly but still it got to the point where you know once a week and get
an email from a customer and all of a sudden twice a week I was getting an
email from a customer and then once a day i was getting email from customer
and so
I have a lot of customer service myself so slowly but surely people started
emailing as more and more and more and it got to the point where i was getting
a bunch of emails a day and I think it's really important especially as the
person who built the site that you handle the customer service yourself
yourself don't have anyone else to do it for you and this is for a few reasons
one because you really sort of keep your finger on the pulse of your site you'll
know what your customers are using it for what problems they are having what
will definitely tell you about any bugs they have and you'll really get an idea
of what they wish the product could do because they'll ask you hey can I gonna
do this so i think when you're doing customer service
it's really important at first to be unscalable so customers will ask you hey
can you recite do this or hey I wish it did this and that what i recommend doing
it for release in verse is do all of it so they say hey can u district
yep or not the second but now it does and so this will teach you
sort of like a big pain that you're your customers have to go through so so you
know you do it as manual as possible i want to recommend doing this like
building out feature immediately so do whatever it is your customers ask you to
do and do it Superman and you want to do is for a few reasons one because you
want to waste your time building something that only one customer needs
and two because it's not one customer needs you get several people asked me to
do it and a bunch of people ask you to do it and eventually you'll get really
sick of doing it and so this will give you a really good idea of what is your
customers have to go through every time they're doing whatever task you with
your product in and and do it that means it's a really good feature idea for your
product and you should probably add it to your site if at the very least so you
don't have to do it anymore yourself
but this
if you get really sick of having to do something that customers that need to do
that's a really good sign that it should be in your product and so this is that's
where improving your product comes from so you do customer service enough and
you'll get a really good idea of what it is your product used to have a set
number 6 is to repeat step 5
you guys remember that customer service to your customers
so hopefully what's happening here is that people will sign up and they'll say
hey we should do this or hey what is going to do this and we'll keep asking
you the same thing over and over and you'll get really sick of it and then
you build it and then people stop asking that but then they'll start asking about
something else
hey we should do this I was into that and just keep doing this over and over
again and so eventually you'll reach a point with which is known as product
market fit which is knowing that whatever it is you're building has found
its niche in the greater economic realm
so you're going to have to keep repeating this for basically forever
them juicer is not about two years ago and I'm still repeating step 5
every day step number seven
ok number seven if the first you don't succeed try try again
so juicer is definitely not the first product ever built that place it
somewhere around the seven sort of full product of built on my own and it's
definitely the first one I would consider to be successful by any sense
of the word
don't get hardened disheartened if what you tried doesn't work with something
else and try again
and so those are the sort of main first seven steps i think that it takes to
build a product and I kind of took a really wide brush strokes there I think
but i just got a few more tips here for you
and so the first one is great business you every time I know I kind of gave a
bad rap to work a full-time job earlier but I definitely don't recommend putting
your job immediately and going out of starting a business and said create a
business in free time and this is really easy too young and single and don't have
kids but if you are a highly recommend if you are all those things are highly
recommend building every time
number two is to grow slow so there's no rush
and there's a few reasons to go slow in one is it will become allow you to
become the master of your problem domain so if you're like me you started social
media aggregation business and you don't know anything about social media or
recreation or anything of that nature and by growing so i was able to really
sort of understand how what is our customers are doing and why they want
this service number two is it will allow you to really get to know your customers
and the more you to know your customers
provided you're a good person and you probably are the more customers will
like you
and the more your customers like you the more people will sign up for your
service
the 30 another reason to go slow and allow you to scale your infrastructure
without having to hire people and so the nice thing about growing slow is that
you can do it yourself
and so this means you don't have to raise money you know be a real startup
which means the state's the lower means less stressful and it means that no one
is your boss still which to me is kind of the whole point
so the really nice thing about being developers and we're all developers here
is that what the main reason that you have to raise money as a higher people
generally the first person you hire a developer you don't have to do that
so besides that you don't have to worry about you actually wasting your time
raising money talking to investors keeping them updated about what it is
you're working on
you could spend all of your time working on your product no tip is to find a
partner
so this is for a few reasons i generally recommended non technical part of the
partner but the technical partner is great as well and they let you do a few
things
so there's someone to bounce ideas off of which is really great just to have
someone to talk about it was my girlfriend gets really sick of me
talking about you all the time
it's someone to motivate you when you're not feeling motivated so i know that
there were certain points during juicer especially right after we launched where
if I didn't have a partner I probably would have just given out because it
seemed like an insurmountable problem to get customers but I had a partner and I
didn't want to let him down so i get working on it and paid off
and finally the greatest part about having a partner is it someone to do all
the things you don't want to do so this means like getting a bank account and
setting up a proper corporate structure are talking to lawyers or really doing
anything you want to do which is great so juicing today
juice has been around for almost two years
when I first started we had one customer and one paying customers we had a
hundred percent conversion rate and it's it's gone down quite a bit since then
but now we have about 17 thousand customers and ten percent of them are
paying and it's by far the best paying job I've ever had
i work an average of one of four days on sorry will
i work an average of one of four hours on a juicer per day depending on how
much I'm building versus how much customer service i'm doing it
any questions so the question is do we doing currently testing and the answer
is yes we did when we first started we had at one price in mind which was then
sold price which is ten dollars a month and actually the way it works is a
little bit different so when we first launched
you got a 30 day trial and there was one like okay account was ten dollars a
month and i think it was like sort of unlimited everything you want updates
every 10 minutes and nobody signed up and so one of the first things we did
was actually introduced or like tiered pricing like having different pricing
models and then offering the free version bring forever version and that
was sort of like a combination of my SEO plan but also people like try to discern
extent so we sort of have like a real cheap version and I'm like a more
expensive that was really sort of had to build more functionality to support the
more expensive version
well it's a good question the best timing device to find a bc but we
haven't found any bc with juicer
well people have actually reached out but we've specifically told them we're
not raising money at least at this moment
so that's a good question i had i think anytime if you need money anytime is a
good time to find a bc sooner rather than later
sometimes
but i would generally say you want to at least validate your product first so you
want to have built the MVP and gotten some users sign up and I do we are
showing up into the right bro
but unfortunately I'm not a master of raising pc capital so i can tell you the
best overall ok so the question is two parts one is like what makes juicer
what made me think I was gonna be some more successful or what makes you seem
more successful mile price and then what
when did I know to give up my old products and so the first thing I'll say
is that juicer is the first product I've ever built
we're from the get-go I sort of had an idea of how to monetize it everything
else I've always built this build a cool thing and then people will sign up for
and then I'll be rich but I never really had any plans
it was the first one that was like an actual business from the beginning and
then number two is how did I know when to give up my other products and i'll
say that I don't know
I didn't even really consciously give up on that might just sort of stop thinking
about their slowly stop thinking about them and then of course the less
attention
the less they did I think general you can tell but for me it was sort of like
the in the I kind of spot at least 14 started doing this sort of thing that
but all I had to do was build it and they will come sort of thing but that's
going and building it is the easiest part and giving customers is the hard
part
well as a bunch of our parts but that's one of the hard
and so I think a lot of times i would just sort of build it launched it get
out there and be like my job is done just let that thing grow and obviously
that's not the way to approach it but I think you can tell
and if it's if it's certainly if you're not thinking about anymore that's fine
but i don't know i could tell you the ideal
yeah so the question is since i don't have a BS degree and I don't work with
any other programmers
what do i do when i need help or have questions or when I need to talk to
someone about these things
well I I I definitely think that giving it full time job
previously to this as a software engineer was one of my biggest role like
learning experiences really accelerated what I knew and you know through those
jobs I've had I have various friends that I can talk to and i have
surprisingly a lot of friends who sort of done similar things to me and they
don't really work full-time anymore and have started their own businesses so
we'll get together and talk a lot of that sort of thing
you know I use that work with a lot even now my questions about how something
should be done because that I don't definitely don't know how to do
everything
a lot of googling I also my girlfriend's developers so i can always plug her
about things i think i'll get somewhere
yeah

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Ruby Conference 2007 Advanced Ruby Class Design by Jim Weirich

I work for edge case which is a Rails development company have been working on
for about six months before the app
I was are pretty involved in the Java world as well doing Ruby
are and Java kinda at the same time so that's kinda my back row talk a little
bit about that but first I wanna
mention the word advanced here you might work think what he's really
going to go deep into some really complicated
are Ruby code here and that's really not the case what I want to talk about is
not so much the advanced Park
with the roomie part about iPhone
that arm language
particularly programming languages him to shove
shaping for the way you think so let me give you a little bit of my background
so you understand where I am coming from I the very first programming language
ever learn
was four crayon and that was in my physics class and work but not for
cramped drive some Calcot waters
also to plot the data from our physics lab experiments
that was great a really loved it it turned out of
I've kind of all the whole computer science thing rather than the physics
things after I got outta college
our first few jobs involve courtroom from their idea doesn't see programming
got very involved in model 2 does anybody remember Mar 02
at the time
it was up I was there beautiful language
it have a really great concept in the things I was worried about when I'm
was bottler 30 cohesion and coupling am also too I felt got a lot of those
things
exactly right from that point then I started getting involved in
object-oriented languages
which took the ideas of coupling and cohesion and modularity
even farther so C pas pas was my first entry and object-oriented design
up from there I got in the eiffel eiffel party but contractor
out to right reliable software rate lined with beautiful
in its own way beautiful in a very different way the ruby is
still a beautiful language in its own right I think a also
involved in the Java law alongside about the second programming language ever
learned was worth
yes these are your father's parentheses
and is quite by accident see I signed up
when I discovered hey this programming thing is kinda fun in my junior year in
college I signed up for
introduction before current programming so I could learn four credits will but
better
I got a class and the instructor
started drawing core code on the blackboard we didn't even have white
works backgrounds
those are all it is OK star writing code on the black poor
I know something right away it had way too many purposes to be four per
i sat in that class for three days
totally confused I had no idea what he was doing
why all those processes are you a little better for Priya
I knew this wasn't right over certain it dawned on me
what he was doing with the print the season because the recursion
the whole thing it turns out this
introduction introduction to 4 per course had Daniel Friedman
as the instructor Daniel Friedman those are you know north
the author of the littlest for the little schemer all that you've just come
out with a little less per book
at that time so we were getting a lot of good little whisper
are techniques thrown at us
in class and we learned with sparboe first reporters that the courts and then
we switched over 24 cramped so we did get our introduction
before print eventually but by then I was hooked so I learned left
after our college arm I got the ball before 4th was great because it's a
its interactive language but its
design first systems will release more resources and I didn't have a lot of
money just got a college
I don't have enough money to buy the ER it was either in Apple to
we or Apple to RR trs-80 those with the big computers back
I'm I don't even have enough money for them right out of college so I bought a
little
single board computer with UK if memory of
you know what fourth runs great to cave memory I had a
editor an assembler compiler and enough for my application code all in 2k a
memory which is really cool
fourth was very attractive not dynamically typed in any way you like
ruby is but it was interactive in the same way that Ruby in the same way that
with spears in a lot of ways
up from there I i kinda graduated up typical
a wall fickle pickle
through program I was very few it's been awhile since I've done that pickle was
also cool in a lot of ways
finally landed in the Pearl as my standard language for developing pools
art to help my programming up C pas
awesome job so paroles kinda like to language our job or
and C pas us we're kinda by professional languages that are used to get recoup
real or doc right are about that time was really looking for an alternative
pearl cause I really like for like
really I really love the work done broke but you know walk
it was unreadable and when you grew your Perl code to insert size
it just in scale up a larger problem in my view
ike I could have a pearl a full article rates
so I was looking for alternatives in about that time Dave Thomas
I think it was the extreme programming mailing a mention about this will like
which Paul Rubens so I grew up
Ruby download it compiled on my machine
tried it and in one day I had completely converted over
using Ruby rover for also that was by a doctor and what was great about Ruby
it wasn't hardship Korea did scripting language
and I was already really involved in the whole movement
and are working with that from the Seans
a C pas plus the Java were all the eiffel world
but I want to point out that my or experience up that Prime
is entirely what we call static languages
so my view always very much shape by
the languages that I used to do or not I'm your own little bit a small are you
us no small part that I could reach more 0 red never written any overt
anger so the concept smallpox really work
apart yet that part ruby was her opening things to do in Ruby
I as opposed to like a static language like Java was
was incredible I really love the whole movie experience
there's a saying you can write 4 p.m. coded any language
perhaps the updated version A back should be great Java code in any
language
I think a lot of how many people have come
to Ruby from drop there's a lot of us here
I think when you if ruby is your first introduction to a dynamic 00 language
you're going to bring concepts from Java and C pas
of yep are along a concert for poor or gonna be great and the good work the
whole thing about modular view
up like that's going to come right with that's going to work well but there are
weeks that Ruby that are in
see vocal in Java code
seaport we're going to talk about some of those
techniques that's what I really want to do is if you are boxed
by the language if you think you know I really want to get you thinking
outside about of so
what are you going to expect from the stop
a first-ball I have three examples more or less reliant
code that i'm gonna show you right these are examples library
I've written using the production and some there's one example one that's
just kinda cool idea the reason I'm into that because these examples half before
you have to be interesting and they have to I have to be excited about talking
about
I will make a confession I was working on this presentation
I got to the third example
I was writing up and I was about halfway done
riding up I made this discovery
or I didn't like the exam what was interesting quote
but the process of explaining it wasn't very interesting at all
me so our so I was trying to decide whether
use examples for something else arm
happen you forget save my presentation file sober
few days later when I came back to revisit that the whole that's life
examples both good that's a sign from God
we're changing our example soon be abstract might've read the program was
little bit different but what we're doing here
that's okay the other thing I want to illustrate
art techniques but you're not gonna fine your standard Java
lapses C pas of programs things that
not literally run across performances vans Ruby paw
okay so let's go ahead and move on to the examples
the first one i wanna talk box number one but you wanna jump out
I call this the master up the skies in this is an example that actually
problems
from rake sure most viewer perhaps were to break
I'll bill tool for real thank you
he
summer so i think is the new piece of code UT is the fact that people
user find it useful II that really gives me a thrill more than anything else
people point useful thank you for that this is a actually a very small piece a
break but i wanna talk about it
in rape rick is all about building things and manipulating with the file so
we have a special class
rake campbell's the are
poll watch: in a file named in finding files in your project and
managing up has called the file was stopped use it a lot like this is you
see on the screen
arm you give a claw
a pattern and it will actor as an array
up those filing alike an array
almost there about for differences between
file with them real right number one it to dislike by Paul because
knowledgeable pop knowledgeable about the files so confined those Feilding
uses you can include file exclude files
Dubai patterns an awkward in traffic picked was very knowledgeable about
also specialized to ass this is the big reason
I wrote a specialized of him out because you 2s array
all things getting there your jam together
about space I really wanted it was the bombing speed
what's up file list as a specialized
to us also has a extra that don't exist
a normal right you can manipulate extension although
file believes in the file list you can come in picked up after
other interesting things or file what's that are not available
right finally are
firewood for please the reason is if you have a rate filing have a bunch of
different past
finding your rate filed like the final all
on up filelist up front be uni
operate file that won't be you
but you're justifying just in case you might Mike used by one the fact that
might be
all later so if you initialize
files by lobbying to your file directories a
searching for files building up with the file this could be quite expensive
so great finalists are lazy in the people actually go out and look
filesystem until the first well I'm you need
use the values while at that point would go out
we get the belt bring so if you define
him twenty finalists getting your rate
while not OVA after you anything I'm consuming
a reaction like music that's a would feature a pilot
actually the future were on separate on today
Mike first cut right filelist
looked a lot like yes I so well a finalist is a right
and so on just inherit from a rate and get all the Arabian your
automatically if you come from a static
language like Java or C post loss one of the first rules that you learn in class
design is
do not Eric from concrete piles that carries a whole bunch of baggage with
truth is
that in Ruby the reasons there are reasons for not inherited from concrete
playoff
appeared Priory differ the reasons
to refine job forty walk I will get to what these reasons are so i thought okay
let's let's go ahead and her from Spring Creek last month to see what happens
but actually worked out quite well begin with initialize for file most
such with this is a simple fiber superpipe
Road of your real filelist move or copy that
us but we initialize a finalist by loading the pattern restate the power
we set a resolve flag
of as we have not yet gone out top
the file link that exist files yup also be called Super
that's just good practice with your hair classic visualizer
make sure you love me initializes your
parent classes as well saw
lazy loading sup just remember the pattern
for use later Sep resolve fall so that you
know you have resolve file yup then you have to try to resolve
up and it's pretty straightforward when you call resolve you want to make sure
your revamp the
go through %uh the filesystem get all the patterns
and insert them into
self which is an array and that's not resolved through three hundred-ton
your file is now complete solving file names of a filesystem
and were resolved so the next time you won't have to call resolving
chop-chop later now does this work
one no
up I'll
a getaway we haven't resolved
yet so when we create a file of
and we try to access the first member because we have not resolved
anything yup that arabia's empty so this will pay off
what we have to do actually explicitly resolve
pilots for how painful
I don't wanna you that so way to fix their
is top automatically resolve the file list
the first time you need so we will take indexing operation
and we will replace a res version
with the version that polls with all if we have it was all
Yap and then invokes the Super for
our index what's called you're a pro actual for
indexing from now that's okay for
indexing remember there's a lot up other rate rapid
well so you gotta walk rinse repeat yes
over and over again now you follow
I would strongly recommend at this point just getting a little better programming
make this easier for you to find disposable plates will do that in a
little bit
relieve that as it is for right now okay
im are resolved great after work pretty good
I was really happy to come over rate work exactly like
us am had very few problems them also someone so
reported a BOP this code works
this is the using the plus
operator that
takes to arrays patents the on
together losses about that on a finalist
I was all filers in fact that make the
that guy called me super that would that makes the contents and the result is a
list up
everything the vilest Haas everything and you're right argument we
bus operator so that work but what happens
if I changed or we've got a small problem
array doesn't know
anything about resolving file so in this case the plots
is the operator only regular array regular array takes argument that the
pilots
looks at its sooo
I have a right and it got this far was Eric from a rape
it is a right so itself up let's compare
content well we have no content so the result is just a perforating
only memories all the cockpit the pilots which is about
that's a problem are we going to do about
back pop/rock whites
over that okay
if only up
if only there was a way for arbiter
up indicate the Ruby system all
tree me as if I were to write
wouldn't that be a nice help was then I could put that
into Wild West Ruby would workout
who using some
your or ship
be have the technology turns out there's a method called
who array to kary
that is designed to indicate exactly this behavior it says
I am an awful thank you it says
I am in object and I want to be treated
as if I were an array Ruby senses you happy Mary
effort on your part of it will call that method
use the result method should return to Rees array of saw
will use that result in all its operations or Treat up
as if it were am i right well that's fine
except filelist who
cleverly mimics about effect it
is generating Review looks the pilots is ok
your honor right I don't need the call to hairy on you
I'm just going to use your comp so the fact I can error
from Iranian filelist was what was going so to make the two
a rematch at work I heard modified filelist
not inherit from array after all
step it's a regular object
inheriting from just your basic laptop again the initializes much the same
except now
we looking through actual array object we campaign
inside the file Ste the at items
I love their we have to change or
resolving code arm
so that used to look like this we know
delegate items it's not a cone super
and now everything
is cool we could pay
an array in a fire last that make them releases a walk
I've got object not an array can you after the raid
policy I have a where we are
area on me call that will be happy Ruby does up
we get the result about so that's cool
remember this are we need
our resolve although server go ahead show you what that would look like with
dry out that code that up
implementing all those methods all over again you do something like this
free to list up methods you need to you are resolved
do a little better program music class about
the fight over also pick up actually quite easy would hurt from array
are not appear Arabia
the my all arrays behavior in fact you can
serve explicitly setting up a result pretty much be
is that explicitly listing those even after going asking array of
what are your stats about that and then iterate have just our resolve all those
a little better programming the class program right
exactly quite small so that's what we're doing today were filelist
things to remember from the house okay
some part when you want to be something else is better not true
error but to use the built-in Ruby
up to Harry the case races also
you something similar for spring is a few STR about that but that's something
very
work without so used those rather than arabs
when you want to mimic of okay box number two
doing nothing people have used
builder really don't ask
all what makes me feel good group of more
grover what for library to write
I wrote it just for the pure joy overriding
I saw an example actually room the results include a group that inspired
yes and I we could Ruby quite easily for not be quite
however in the writing abyss a productive so
little or repeat that we had to deal with one another
hawk about those corner cases right now
so if you're not familiar with builder very simple
a builder is a way of building XML very easily
Ruby created over object you then
sir messages such as steam such has made such as phone number
the builder of the best them in blocks appropriately
and builder figures out how to translate all that good stop
it XML using the names of the methods
uses the pact in XML using your block structure to figure out how to best
properly this is a simple example
abusing builder and the names of the pads
and the names of the messages matchup
who the magic about the missing I didn't write builder don't anything about
student
about names about to phone number it's just that we track
those Rapids in a builder but nothing missing
am pick the name and Greek exit million so you can send
anything acting builder and recognizes
really cool I will point after easier right XML with your
that is right up to the love that's about and it's great especially for
dynamically generated up
great rooms generate a list very usually
one stop auto database India builders a really and the
over library use what happens though
this example we have name phone number write a review
all or builder class are to our builder
object Matt Squire 2002 rock
work or walk why I asked us to pay
and he's taking a trip to Ruby obviously
a various defiance he
on what happens when we execute this little piece of double coat right here
yep clients is a predefined ruby has a method called
laugh but every object class refers
possibly up is a number of
wanna number of predefined Rapids you know obvious classes I
the there's to you ask room are
you know the list goes on overwrought use any
these predefined methods in your at some now
builder has a problem with that because it says of predefined doesn't get into
the whole method
missing thing at all and we've got problems
saw wes is pretty far I'm
fix for this would be nice
separate would be nice yeah how can we inherit from
up well actually inherently from of
we would like to be an object but not yet all be
artistic garbage for all the over
extra of comes up up we don't want to
for our overclass so horrible that
well %um builder we're going to change it so instead of returning from a
Pakistani
ever from something hope white slate
whites white I want to talk about
the day
ago
want sleepers out Yuli easy
Iraq
well
almost what happened run you see what I'm doing here
I'm Arabic all the instance methods that are available in the blank slate
Playhouse
I'm iterated you took them I'm on the following that method when you
undefined the map that make it disappear
from that class white slaying will not help
class that will not have I the will not help
house find so we just generate whoever
and remove them what happens when I run this devil forget the right that's a
bell but we also get a little
cup award because we're a little all results removing
about this a couple methods such as underscore item and underscores them
that the system there if you remove them it may
cause serious problems bus these effects
so we'll just under for unless the baby give
I'll actually I think the real for
up like slate we also avoid removing instance about was productive the
balance up
interested that they have a row and
probably not yet a while well
act that was kinda safer to stop
that's pretty cool everyone just we get exactly the right pro
great I love that simple
iraq you rock group
this good enough have recovered all the corner case
but yeah likes like was released pretty much
like that showed the while people began
writing everything papers there's a problem with this October
that these rapids are not appear in my apt to melt even though they show up
go
what are we doing here we require blinks likes a blank slate
lows it removes all methods from internally so now it is a blank slate
and then in are application we decide
wouldn't it be nice to have a globally available method called
Bay we put into kernel her was
model good art anything you define
colonel is available every OPP
what flight now if we could arrange for QoS a blank slate as always the very
last thing
overloaded loaded with at this in the kernel
for loaded like slight likely would handle remove it when it was loaded
unfortunately
it's too late with one wants leaders already loaded
already removed all those methods an hour ago having something to her or
one slick picked up automatically that was not a good day
so get this will result in the wrong number of arguments there
for the same reason to class but does not need is predefined sewer
you with this turns out this is also pretty
you with Ruby are
I'm going to refract wants like just a little bit I'm definitely is a private
method
I wanted evil caught somewhere else or preparation for that we're going
rapid optimum app hi well-used
at the High have gotten I'm the pines all our
methods and no height is available globally
and then we're going to at something to people abuse
about that at added yes itself
hook if Ruby Road saw Ruby
were it the farms method classes models
will work for a map it a
class call method
out and if it's find it will call out
and parents in the name of the map
that was just at artful so
arm I wanna rector arms to
third Lord in method at says whites Lee
Barack when we are about that I want to hide
inside a blank slate if bottles being
added with self you score so if colonel get some
method added to yet remove it from
lights lights or lights like it's probably notification have any methods
yet if you
model we're adding about the two is black pearl that's okay
what purposes only /url it's going to bother up looks like so I
a check to make sure we're only idea if its kernel
the first and last one about the data
is just a way possible health by
up into about that added that we want to make sure that you
all their old as well otherwise we'll liberate their youth
without so that that's good if I think rails has a way of doing that
on efforts up me alias up the check the real
reels has a little way of doing that very hour about such what
year is just being courteous using up
ape-like up please use so pick somewhere yes
saw I'll note at the bottom of the screen says
we need something similar for op read is
who in object because you can at beth is
replica object as well as also up
very several Todd all back
now are we good
how would cover all the qualities I added after
builder release the gap I thought revolt every
everything were who'll can also book
report you get I'm using this method
and its still not showing up builder like
still not forgotten by Axwell referee Arthur said your call because I got
everything covered against up
of a plea we could be missing anything so he sent me the code I looked over
discovered this
very similar the probably
for slightly different in
this case your create new model all capital main
inside model name we define about that
call name and then we model
a the optic class this is actually a very common way of extending core
classes
all the extension any model that pain
extensions event in one place the pork of just before
what's does actually good practice recommended our problems
it probably bypasses
about that having hook because not bad having
rapid are were moving are
it Harbaugh bowl wats up that saw
fortunately for us okay appeals there
fortunately for us there's a
hook feature call and feature another
gonna walk this code as a solving that the data
almost exactly like that we have to make sure
whenever we Blue Bottle ok apparently just is called whenever a broad
so we could fine those events we check to see
are that were worthy of it by Afghan we remove all the methods go ahead
i'd better that model it looks like so
white like ap his wallet that has turned out to be pretty good that's what we're
using
currently in over I don't think I've got any reports from many walks like they're
having problems
all look her we r knows where you have good putt putt
but if you want to see the exact details like for you to go grab hold for builder
prove that it was a really fun library to write really applaud
back
this is the example but not every library
I think the techniques your interested I'm really hoping someone will find a
good use for example probably not
about being a good use or arms about
the technique is fun that's good enough for me I like pop Funko
use enough
right israel's boat you done any real programming all
you've seen this all the time user is a reels
rather record artful
R O and has a fine about the mall
rethink fine all users me
is chip and you see
am if you want to be a say that's interesting
we have made it was perfect Markham quotes
that is actually sequel for mixing
little bit asleep code with the little bit Aruba cold all kinda mean one thing:
its its the whole 73 where the
puny think is is bothering at this point cock
one thing I know I could do if I have a list use
I think also what on passable walk
end up walking okay it does is used a Jim
here should be 8ee all their
edifice equals
here that is true and select for me
all users who main this was
used letters whole Ruby code and that's the way we're a group photo every day
ever walk
novice see all-star that we have to be a so it's also
I ruling drawn to the what we are doing things but
another database is therefore models are happy that somehow
but would if wouldn't it be nice
yup there's a wave useful app
if record that would be so cool
so we could think this users of the lock give up what the hell's our criteria
we quote everything Ruby everything would be beautiful and we're all happy
never have your seaport yeah so it looks like
or writes a lot here's my first
tapped I
here some cough move from the audience depicts the problems with this poem
a folder
work pretty
for of
hot no for
okay its hugely inefficient what what what I'm doing I'm
grabbing all the users from the database and they're not putting the
analyst so I have a million users I just having
array with a million entries in nice or who have for the him for users
whose name is actually jim not really
efficient not official all its low
marked people's love it after would kill disco your databases are actually
as much as I really if they basically are think they do things
very well be have really efficient algorithms for searching
data in the table a indices set up the practice of
at work using database up all for this
just for the sake of being able right up group so
got up got this problem want to do everything Ruby
but I also want to take advantage database as well saw what can we do
well I'm gonna hypothesize
a magic implementation up for what and the magic he is OK
we have this little magic method called translate block
we pass up the block it will come up
the resolve this method will be
a condition we can pass into rails
and real and sequel and the database
all the good work that it lights or presley the former towards
and then the database does its job we're still
writing everything that we do Ruby that would be really cool
so I would
well I could think of
ample avoid my property we could actually part that quote how many people
have written
the par-4 great
was a lot of fun
are for ya probably was but also a lot of work
just to solve the problem right for writing a rooftop
that's just how many people have written a Ruby park
perhaps word
you that's a hard thing to do
ruby is an interesting like with part that after I think performers up there
that that will handle some about for
pool work
for me because I i'm looking for the simple right in the evening well
oh yeah this is this is what rock this is a small strip
a coat from the Ruby parser noted review itself so
I couldn't get in there there's a library call parth
ass here on for war
hip bypasses the whole out like are
requested by say what there's one soco the
really really really knows how to are through be thats Ruby
so what's what Ruby parce and we'll go into
its gots Andrew lipow the abstract are bbbbb are
the par-3 that's built into Ruby itself wats pose a
into rebuke who and it's a really cool like
yup I really recommend doing that factors such a good idea
someone else had that idea up and if you look up to him
mission project are terrible blog this URL
he does exactly that fact he writes a berth lock
using par-3 to get up-to-date up so
if you want to do this is a good way to go and look at that library I think with
I'm going to start up for all users were it's really quite yet but we're not
going to do it that way
me because someone else is doing it but of Pau
why don't we just execute code
all XQ
Co what's gonna happen keep that bought mine for just a second
and this is a I R P such for your
limitation star RB we load
a Weiber called I no on I create another cop
people so we're going to be dealing with no table node is a
whip are you a little bit 10 yes the table node is the No
remember a database so we talked to remember the name up
users which is the baby over database table
backs are record all restore that in a variable called
user and then we
whole about that or user method is .name
restore the result about that in a variable call result
Reprod up all I would convert result was throwing
recap users got me
that's really interesting
I created on our I call the method on top
the result of calling wrap it up like Britain result own
through it tells me what level I call
one topic but all actually it
act but does something a little bit different
for it ver that method call
user to see all right references the tabletop
cool
I can go yet feel
reference from within just by using the stable though
and just to illustrate farther I also ask for 8 field user
want to convert the resulting back to a string I get users
now a so I can reference I can build up sequel
for a very simple method all and your publication the people know
is trivial it's one its two classes the first one is people vote which were
using directly
it just remembers the name of the papal that were referencing
and when you convert back to restrain
there the bottom of the screen you see that it just returns the papal main
trivial Co only minor tricky stuff in it at all
is about the missing call and when we yep
a method or are people know that sells
I am going to remember map it was just
all by creating a new opera calling map it would
the method noble recall me able note
possum up that was just called on me Richard that
as resolve the matter call itself and so the
method no is the resolve calling about the daughter Ruby object
his method no again really trivial
which is reports the Opera the method name and when asked to convert to a
string
does exactly that the app is all a coat the
implement RRP session ask who'll
were Parkway converting grupo
see cover method called
objects to see or fragments reference
your or arm people's
but to be a little bit more just for
your reference are here but worth
how do we say usually equals Jim how to record that
approves like that into sequel
well you know walk double eagles is just about the
an I could be five EE also no
I can see something this violent worth or
and I can create a new I don't know
with that you're gonna see a lot of different note flap implementation
all the binary op know who did the binary opto
was looking for double equals seaport will look
up that would be a single all and I have to remember the left hand side on the
right hand side
up also a record that we initialize
or have children implementation by Marriott or
record the operator the left right hand side
have been weak US the whole thing we just convert it to a
see or fragment that have currencies around the we'll have to worry about
going back for upper and we have the
left hand side revert to a string operator converted to string
and the right now it's like bird just right
Wow Barnardo back by Yuri of know it was
the you as well about very so
reiterating capture the method
in the note buyouts greedy note of it represents a
miss lies that note of liquid things that it needs to go
just return the app implementing the note is pretty trivial
and running this now greater cable though
we execute code user H equals fifty
and store that address walk
room convert res 12 string it says
users got a you see all
where clause up Ruby pro
right there try to get let's do the same thing with mister now lets a user dot
mainly was Jim
government will jump and when we convert their the result of that most rain we
get. users not made
single people jump who
I got a prop
yeah we have no quotes Roger ap
with easily that small matter program
what we've done is that we're not think which we're taking Ruby African just
don't
about a string up really good
differentiate conversion we need to capture converse Ruby objects
the sea block numbers just
US on a number that's fine over string recover reviews true
to AC of rag really wanna put both the route
so we need to surprise Perino class for those
was pretty liberal no playoffs and that's just handle simple things like
integer
burt directly at the sequel and then we'll create
a string node that handles rivers and streams in the sequel strings it does a
when hope you have pictures at single quote you cite strike
probably wanna make that a little bit fancier Campbell
all so thus keeping that string as well
be aware about but we're keeping it simple here
now we have a problem
I've got a bunch of different well got last
literal string but I have to make sure like right
Ruby up we have to look at a Ruby up
we have to make a decision artwork by that Ruby object
and come up with right kinda Ruby op
we could do this I could create a method called rapido
takes an article from looking statements you know
BAP and this will work fine
arm I don't like this your
reason yes I've got a wonderful over
which objects know how babe himself
things quite alright ask centralizing all discover
the one place 10 it distributed one we object to every
object knows how to convert itself into it sequel
no so why would rather do something like this
open up object class creepy
as a sequel note up and it is wrapped in ER preoptic
as a liberal no min string which is a special place I wanted
Bowl I just rap strings Op
any string no and recover that as well they're both coal
as a sequel the key is we're opening up
core classes your wanna be purple with the bay up
this is perfectly fine Ruby but whatever
careful because your opening up for classes at the Community
with like so that's widening the
as AC what no talk hope that name was
unique about that I probably would collide with any other
arbitrary review library attic big sister
up just be aware that if you
up and now converting any object to me
no is really really easy just after up
gimme yourself as the proper no
only did it worked with no little bit it needs its own as a sequel
no about that this is already a node
this report itself that works out for what part mean we need to use this
when we create in binary of
I'll no we need to make sure that be
right hand side up the operation converter
at the left hand side is a note of already that's why we're here
Expo we don't need convert self it's already have no
other may or may not be ago just convert would know
now when we run this
single quotes that's really cool
we can convert Arbor Peru biko to sequel
just for executing the rupee Co
okay ok love to be with us example well
there's lots of operators we need to patch up the leak was not the only one
we need to hit all the other
greater than life I'm a grew equal to
people to all the of Minas
star provide operators and a bunch of other operators you might want to
consider
on things like no question mark
no question mark was the rubidium for doing that perhaps note
pic no Corp marker like that you is
naw okay so there's up perhaps
pattern matching should be converted the sequel like
operator maybe maybe not I don't know.
was all kinds of things that we could at the apt been if we wanna write somewhat
it's pretty much just this supply north africa
you to ask all our people up result wat
take the block we execute the ball passing year
eight people know object as the
all as the argument so would we evaluate our condition the condition that the
value we did against
the people or objects builds up a sequel called
as we build right weary when we're done that result car
we take it converted to string which I for got put into the slight
and passed it to fund all we've got are
selector we got our magic ver to
are report to sequel
cool so why don't we do this
or problem well there's a number up
most operators are from our community up
so we can see user not name is Jim or we can see Jim
probably was user got a the first would work
certainly has a small problem that double equals is being stepped through
the Strait
wire during doesn't know about 20
so it's going to return true or false it's not going to refer
for proper note of it after that so bad is the problem can't play with that
override are double equals
and capture the app that we're playing were all
really fundamental depositions Ruby I'm that are
all that so battles
that's a small problem either solver site were actually if you have
mathematical operators like plus mines
both actually payable are the whole
coercion problem by I a protocol called
or so in Ruby if you have a pics no
41 yeah at the gather have to figure out what
crop result for those things participated warm-up
or worth figures up rock of past do that
you actually are you over here use
in Bow and make sure that notice on the right hand or left their flights the
work
up so mathematical operators are okay
some of them such as double artwork right
as a corpus work
but here's a bigger problem I think this is really the killer
that really stop suspected to be useful for sequel
and that's the double in person and a double work
a bar operators or
well not about you cannot override them the reason is
that double am double vertical are and the
or operator short-circuit
their evaluation they can determine the true
true or false overexpression just by looking at birth of around
you ever valuing second I'll
those difficult to find that program semantics any
about that there for Ruby does give us away hooking into
those operators as override you cannot overwrite
double am double vertical bar
up you could use going single critical parts that
then we have to write special Ruby old cycle select walk rather
record that's a little bit a comfortable for me
a bigger problem also is that a but not bang operator
be back of greater all sort of override
you never say not addition always say bank in ethics Prof
for true or false it will never think that
bird not no is no way of doing that
all like whites for
can't change can overwrite so that's a problem
and so I would really recommend this technique for a sequel it's a great
example
kinda motivate the problem but I'm kinda throwing this out
really hoping someone will have a great idea for using the I think the beautiful
part
up it's a solution or working for problem perhaps
all maybe evaluating expressions and
rafik are some a mathematical analysis useful
maybe you have a problem in Cuero able to be really useful
you but technique is happen room
code execution Tracy markets call and building up a structure about
hell what's happened in the past arm
actually use this very mall limited way
influx law what's marked with the ability Rick or
all transactions as they happen on the box awaited
playback you have a verified
good way of doing something and a new way of doing something
verify that the in Iraq law a very limited
half bath up upping like
arm I got this idea actually from a small
like war which does this
smallpox very similar is also a library in ruby port part
Syria does this as well suffers from the problem
you've mentioned before you look close
saw
advance Ruby class design what we were always follow up on code
that was actually my goal for today I think we really should know about that
that language shapes the way you think that when your roomie
work or ruble fight solutions to your problem and in doing so you will perhaps
understand the corners of your life you coming to Ruby
from Java for C pas also from a different language a news Ruby
very quickly but Appling were those or repeat
what weapons or learn about meta programming to learn about redefining
operators
you're gonna miss law up good solutions
your problems to you can't get that or language
all your belts are really encourage you to you
going research language under spam was paid orders
also wanna courage go ahead
outside the box work for those unusual
our solutions you don't need them all the time that don't need them
both both pro-growth like this I would be very
very word but there are occasions when needing special solution
Ruby up in a fine that's possible solution for you so go ahead
think outside the box your cock after all up three years ago someone had
not stopped all the POC with regard to web frameworks
Arts will be right this kind of boat
so thank you very much

LA Ruby Conf 2014 - I Have Pair Programmed for 27,000 Hours: Ask Me Anything!

dude in mmm
the I know that a
knows talk so there's a lot of audience participation
kinda awkward held like somebody asked for if anybody has a questioner to raise
their hand at something there but it kinda Mills around
well guess what this entire talk is only that
so nobody asks any questions
it's going to be really awkward for everybody
so let's do this and give you a second so i pair program for
27,000 hours which is about every working day will
more or less for thirteen years and
I really want you to ask me anything because people find this topic
fasting something to give you a moment couple seconds to
just silence think one
question you might want to ask go
okay that question you thought it was by one of the top three or five questions
that though that one out
and think of another question
that you might wanna ask how do you get up get up
up you're going for it awesome how do you get over being nervous
let's do this picture how to get over being nervous when europe a program
where somebody
um having a lotta time doing that a lot
that makes a big difference that first time is always
the first time you've ever paired with somebody and even now after 13 years the
first time out there was somebody
I'm nervous and I'll even admit that
you know we organize our our projects and to these
work on stories in calling cards whatever little features
and whenever I'm about to start a feature with somebody
that may last a day or two even if I work for this person for a long time
I'm nervous when we click that starr because I'm always thinking like this
could be the time
when I completely fall apart and turns out I don't know
what I'm doing and the person I'm working with this guy I think I'm an
idiot
I it happens like just for a few moments
it always happens I think for me the answer is I never stop getting nervous
but you it's it it becomes just kinda part of it
and you get over it really quickly especially when you have a good report
with people
%uh there's a question the back no stupid questions
yes what is
pair programming i in general- so
maybe I'll force you to ask another question raise your hand
if you've ever pay program but
almost everybody I would say that was eighty
ninety percent me I'm so for the temperature left
pair programming is a supper development technique
by which to programmers although it can be
a program and a designer it could be two people to say that
are working on the same computer gotta go computer
stopping the same software problem at the same time
so sometimes that's literally to
people sitting side by side at the same computer with two keyboards usually
I trying to decide you know how to write this line a code grey here whether or
not we should
go take a different direction whether or not a
should we follow these solid principles that we just learned about
about how to better follow them and kinda constantly working together
to come up with the best solution to whatever whatever problem you're solving
at the moment
I'm sometimes you can do this remotely tissue doesn't have to be at the same
computer you can do it across
screen sharing and and such as well let's go to the canonical
a description of what pair programming is and there's a lot of benefits as well
but there's a question so I'm not gonna pass it up with for
what is pair programming good for
and was pair programming bad for a
so we tend to believe I say
on a bus Asami I believe but there's almost no problems that are bad
prepare programming um we
even pair write this gonna sound weird but it makes sense to promise
we sometimes pair right emails on
especially for example you are sending an email
to maybe a politically sensitive up
a manager or something like that when you're may be working in a complex
organization
where the only everything is email all the time
and you're trying to yo capture well some kinda situation
all right that together so that we come up with like something really good
ever that sounds kinda weird but will even take it that far now question I
have heard
is can you pay program on those sorta boo
sorry a split re I am
I just some point this thing
on let me put this power imbalance a while I'm doing that
i havent had I've had people ask me what about the kind of cortical
artsy things or the algorithms and
that kinda superstar those those things that traditionally are thought others to
we know where you go to a mountaintop you think about for a long time and you
come up with like
Google search algorithm or something like that I think you compare program
on those as well um
a I really don't think that there's are the anything you capture
bear
and you care program with out talking to each other so I actually know somebody
who'd on Twitter are tweeted the other day
but Remo care program remote programming is so hard
and iRobot at all what kind of problems are you having site passion about that
particular topic and I like to help
is as well you know when you can talk to each other it's hard to know what's
going on
like well it's really really hard to pair programming without talking
I can also say I've never are programmed in style
a comeback that person who won't talk at a different problem
I can talk about that but as far as a
literally having no means a verbal communication I've never
done that I don't think it would work very well
have you done this
I'll that's interesting having your could speak for itself I like
the philosophy about as an experiment
I have a hard time justifying Billy my clients for that experiment
the I thought something I
you haven't tools for remote purple
I yeah so what are the tools for remote pair programming
I have a whole talk I could adjust about that the whole go too deep into it
but in general you need some kind of
Voice communication Skype Google hangout something like that
their screen share any need some kinda screen chain technology
by which you can clap rate on the same computer to solve same problem now I am
opinionated about what about to say love people might not agree with me about
this but I will say it anyway
and that is people often say like I remote program and we use Skype
or use Google Hangouts and I say you're not
pair programming I'm sorry you're certainly collaborating
ferry you know intently on the same problem
you not pair programming because you can't both program
that's my king writer
what happens when you don't agree a what on how to proceed with your pair
presumably maybe in a technical you know anything anything anything from
programming to
any kind of approach that happens all the time um
but the talks call pair programming kinda
continuous compromise and negotiation
um but I also like to say that what you often arrive at is
the highest common denominator at the lowest to the highest
to take so when you don't agree BL
spent some time talking about of course sometimes
you won't you after will say 5-10 minutes
may be able extremely passionate about these two directions
what will often do and we can almost always do this
is bringing another person who is respected by both
to say listen listen to this
um and if that's not possible maybe your to people you're gone
an open source project or two-person project and there's nobody to bring in
on sometimes you just have to go with one of them
and somebody else has to just take just kinda grin and bear it for a while
and see if it bears fruit see if it works out
but the other person the person according to one
should ideally be gracious enough to say if they're idea doesn't end up working
out
to say let's try the other one maybe you'll good tribal
as well um
non-verbal communication methods that use with pair programming
others are especially important with Remo pair programming
where you up against each others hands and such
but actually I find that I'll a lot of people talk about
we'll ask me how do people how do you decide when
who's going to what he calls a drive verses
navigator had a setback and not have has a keyboard because what I'm not talking
about
is like one person running like a left-hand side the caber
the other one the right I did actually as attention to my attention
ask my ok I got a haircut the other day before I can asked the lady
work in my hair if if she could imagine to barbers
working on the same had had the same time and she said no
because their scissors would keep hitting each other a.m.
thought that was interesting I'm not talking about that about the
so there is like a I'll ideally in a good parent situation
a trade of the happens you know as your working on persons like it a little
while the other one takes over that one takes over
and chemical bounce back and forth and a lot that I find is that non
it's done on purple communication happens and it's little things
that you get used to picking up on somebody's like
up dude on this computer here and try to me you know one person who's driving
there leaning forward the intently
typing like clearly in there there eyes are focused a clearly like very much in
his own
and in that situation it could be very disruptive for the other person just
jump in and grab the mouse and keyboard to start doing something because
we've all had somebody rip us out that zone
and it's very disruptive now that person is doing that and then they pause
and then they do this thing like
harder how do you is it
is a the method on kernel and thats
when the other person can say like I know what that is
and they can jump they can jump in because they've the person has taken
themselves
out about Sam and
the other person can almost always jump it without disrupting that without
disrupting them
out now you there are little techniques we can talk about where somebody refuses
to give up the keyboard
um DVD is great for this because you can do something helping pump rainwear
on person right to test and output per cent implements and then
you trade back and forth that's like ever a good technique to
enforce that um but those little nonverbal things your people taking a
pause sitting back
rubbing their face there's always this on this is my paper on
this is a I'm not typing right now
people do that on a lot that's %uh invitation for somebody else to take
over as well
something over here
I'm so the question was other situations our people said
that remote pairing can be even better than in person paying
and sent that the actual question because I've actually I heard people say
that they
sometimes enjoy remote pairing more than in person paying
and I am biased because I remote pay program full-time
so I'm biased alike want people to say that
but I'd uninvited people have said this and the reason they've said
that our way to an example applied it's that is that
when you're saying it is a busy office like the travel office
with a lot of stuff going on and everybody is pain because pain as a lot
of talking
its there's a lot of stuff going on and then that person like through that Nerf
ball across the room and then
you know somebody is having a birthday over here and as just a lot of stuff
going on
um and remote pairing tends to
focus you even more focus than you already are
when you're carrying because pain can be extremely focusing Sony
you know if you can to put on a headset I'm going over your ears
and your we are looking at camera with this other person's face on and you're
working on this code together
it can really laser focus UN on the problems are you trying to solve
and so for that reason some people said some situations they prefer Remo K
because I really focuses that I'm versus the kind of the distractions that can be
quote-unquote normal office and in
in the back
up good question so if you are pairing with somebody
who is very senior to yourself
perhaps um do you both do the
does the pair in general get benefit gala
so I say absolutely I think one other core
benefits a pair programming is the cross training and knowledge transfer
affect up now that might seem like it's all this junior person
getting all about benefit um
and I find that that's not the case at all the senior person Assamese been
doing this for twenty years
and the pain is somebody kinda somebody who's like a college grad I
extreme but I can say is somebody has been doing this for 15 years
and recently was pain with the college grad
every single day I learned something from
that college grad that I didn't already know and i actually this is this is no
liability notebook
all day planner i sat next to me on my desk and everyday I write down something
that I learn
for my pair and it doesn't matter if their senior more senior than me
same level recent college grad I always learn something from them
so I really do think that but that's one aspect by which
a very diverse pair will call it our despair
um can still benefit each other and also find
well let me ask you guys this question you can think about yourself I say I
find
that when I really think I know something really well
and that new be says what's going on here can you explain it
and I explain it and they like I really I still don't get it and then I have to
force myself to
actually understand it better and not make all these assumptions
and I've actually managed to talk myself out
a belief that had like actually saying them out loud I realize
Heights I kinda sounds terrible
why are we doing it that way ever have those moments I have those moments
so that's another way in which just that the
the forcing the %uh the the senior person to
to get into a teaching mindset can benefit them
as the teacher as much as it benefits the person whose line
I
Mikes by so the question was would people who've only
paired side by side in person somebody then does remote her
what has been their general take away and I would say almost every single time
they've said that it was almost exactly like in person
not necessarily better mean I say I bet if you were to like put it on a 100
point scale they probably rank it
lower than in person paying and I would never go so far as to say like
I ever to go home and my headset and some high speed internet just stay home
life I had a choice I would be side by side pain with
the people that I work with so you get so much higher fidelity everything
but back to your question people almost universally say that it was
way better than expected that is intimidating is like
technology going on at like some kinda blurry video and
it's like what's gonna happen I've never done this before it like
%uh the screen is typing on its own and I am
the novelty love the remote
situation I'd say falls away very quickly
like by within an hour or less and because once you get into that zone at
like
okay well should we extracted object here or or not
and then use you just revert right back into the normal conversations you have
all the time a pack
and whether or not that person is the composition having is with the remote
person or not
it's the same conversation and it's the same at the inflow
I love the parent experience %uh as long as you
male have a good at high speed and internet things like that
I'm some people usually say that's really good
a with
do I ever want to just work by myself
and the answer is yes yes I do hi
my name's Joe pair program pretty much high-tech rare
and I still really sometimes miss working by myself
um at the it is a different experience
you know I'm a plus but I got this light
didn't have any questions about the words on here
I a.m. %uh so yes
I do miss working by myself sometimes and there are times
like the way our company structure sometimes you're in between
client engagements and you might have a few days were just makes more sense you
to work
a work by yourself I've had people ask me a
so if you're if you are exclusively pair programming near Paris sick do you just
take the day off to
the call that we're not in were not like that dogmatic
help crack and I'll send people home because somebody has a
you know cuz they're pair has a cold or something like that and those days are
I'm not gonna lie
it's really fun and I can also honestly say
I a check into my worst code during those days
and make dumb mistakes and thrash on these easy things that
my a pair with just like what you doing
like its you're you're making a mistake right here so it's fun
but its order they like when my wife is getting is outta town for a few days
kinda like bachelor time stay up late
and you know drink that one extra beer and things like that but
you know in the end it's better to go back to more discipline say
are here pusher
to the question was
what if you have a parent situation where people are also the same mind
you know they agree on everything that the same experience level
there's very little interchange %uh via ideas our knowledge because they're
basically on the same page
I I found that that's extremely rare situation
because were all extremely opinionated people
and we have up I even more
like maybe that maybe wasn't as fair as it is to say
people that have different experiences
from their past different projects different companies it may be different
if two people I say
hired on the same day straight at a college or something like that kinda
come up
together only working together on the same projects you know that maybe
a situation where it might be more likely for them to
have had this group think you know total lock and up ideas
because they both had such a narrowband experience
but in my experience that's even people who are the same a to graduate college
at the same time it worked as a similar companies before
working together all that other experiences
have come built them in two different people with different ideas
and and have a lot to contribute to each other
so I can imagine that situation happening but I would imagine
it also be an extremely rare and they're almost always been an IK
interchange ideas between almost
any pain nomination experts a
pressure ever
oh oh boy the editor what editor do you use
what key mappings to use hot damn 24 ac
um the um
so the answer is yes all the time um
even amongst you know petals kinda famous for being dogmatic about things
like key mapping and their bodies in the same editor
the Gaslight different officers years difference editors um
thanking mappings and such %uh so the
it back it up with a hike in a match at the No a bigger issue and say open
source situation
hey you wanna work on some open source okay that's great okay
now we're kinda but we ever has our custom tuned laptop
just for them um if somebody really wants to learn
other editor that that's a great opportunity to do so
are your day max percent in November San you know this is a great
opportunity for me to learn a he Max or office are all set um
at the very least bought finding the default settings on those editors
like cedar overwrite all up the defaults guy like reverting back to the default
on a lot of these editors can help
because the other person they may not know your custom thing but they know
the default so whatever the editor are whatever the editor is
I'm so like finding some compromise I can be great
is also good opportunity for you both to use something you're not familiar with
and you can both are not together us to the side
re: a I'll
yes I I think the question is like how do you
decide kinda how much driving one person does versus somebody else you like to
you
to switch off the the typing every few minutes
are a few hours are maybe somebody all types all day long and other processed
on the next
today I would say um
this is going to sound a little squishy but
kinda whatever works out great for the pair within
within limits so for example out by Never Say acceptance
weird situation like something has I used to work somebody had our site
literally could not type
yes pair programming with somebody who it's physically on cable incapable of
typing
um so 70 situations I would say that going all day
with i mean somebody pair pretty unbalanced um
down to the other extreme like you trade letters too far
a I find it yelps basically be a
every kinda few minutes I like there can be
I'll you can use things like campaign to enforce
up below in a situation that would go on balance up without it
at the person is just a keyboard haha that is not going to give up the key
worked as a
I got the typing so much fun um and then the other pic until like hey what he
says I thought well it's also have a little
non-confrontational cue
at like hey maybe we should ping pong this one on that %uh KIII get
a message on my hands down um so that can be a good way to bringing the
flowback
but like like there's a there was a a question earlier about non-verbal
communication and
and I kinda turned it into how the flow works out and just those little
people people go through a peaks and valleys big ones throughout the day like
maybe you had breakfast in your like
and your coffee near up here and then it's like help 15 minutes before lunch
in your kinda like
will struggling and then of course is that to those I like three o'clock
were like Bruno you a dislike really really working on your pretty hard
and you're like feeling like you're gonna fall asleep but your
inevitably people's rhythms
are all they're not going to be locked directly and aunt as
as far as like the energy level psychadelic
writing the peaks so somebody's like really into it and then they can to take
a little pas in their thinking
and that's a great opportunity in a good healthy pairing scenario where the other
person can to jump in
and my and my experience that every has to be every
few minutes sometimes five sometimes 10 sometimes too hope that answers your
question
I the other guy didn't get to talk earlier
okay
couple couple questions there I'm one I
it and an effort to sort a balance the pair see don't have
too many kinda Bob either
experience levels are exactly the same or totally wide-ranging ones
do you ever do we ever say try to mix up the pair specifically to pare people
together
I am purposefully like a
so they short answer is yes we sometimes will do that especially when it's
something like a
hey John is really get a CSS with the CSS chore
coming up I add hey you know Sally
you really don't know any CSS is you but you said you want to learn
love how about if you guys parabens somebody color
arm or when somebody is not working on say that's one area the code lot
and had become there's which is a kinda
a danger um being getting
rotating people through that a expert rapidly
so that they can transfer get that not get that knowledge shared among stressed
that he will do that on purpose as well
a secondary question was how do you decide when
people are gonna pair um and a
couple answer to that one we as part of our morning
kinda stand-up meeting morning meeting I'll check n
we say who what's the switch pairs we try to switch every day if we can
up 10+2 structure our projects
such that the thing you're working on are these little
thats that you can often get done in a day so that's a great opportunity to
change like a we just finished that thing on the profile page I'm done
we're done with that let's mix it up to finish something yesterday okay let's
trade I
sometimes I have people who need to stick together for a few days
and that this time um
now %um but the officer can happen where
maybe this is really long running feature super complex
these two people that working together for three days I
idea that like managed to convince people to let them go for days I'd at
and they're still together and still not done we usually will
encourage them to break up and get another mind the next that usually means
are stuck on something
or that the stuff they're working on a so complex that we need to get some
other
ideas and mind to those are all
ways in which we decide how to combine pairs
right cross training different disciplines like
sis ops and programming I might turn that into
I bringing those pain designers a pain with your product manager
I I love that
i'm for many reasons wonder is the
the easy way no like cross cross-training
somebody's not very good Asus of their pain with SS ops percent
they're both gonna learn a lot from each other up
but the also I feel like the secondary benefit up the cacophony these camps
the il's of guys out there like
the yeah %uh those designers
way Photoshop with that um
it so pairing can also bring together these other people
and a turns out we're all pretty much the same for all
Kiki people and would like to learn from each other and
it's a pain can break down those kinda social barriers as well
so there's literally yes cross-training now something I haven't necessarily seen
as
full-time pairing between these different organizations like
you always have a programmer always paired with a sense of person
um those tend to be more targeted things like able
you got to deploy to that server and I T kinda owns that
but hey let's work together on getting this working because I tease ever
deployed
that thing you're trying to deploy does and does a great targeted
situations to to care
I think we have time for maybe Wahine more way in the back when should you not
care
all I got 45 seconds um that's that's a
that's that's a tough that's a tough question I'll think there's anyone
situation like you know definitely
in the pair programming handbook online you know fifty it says don't care the
situation
um yeah maybe I'll
changer question in till like I
make sure that you take breaks if you are getting burned out on pain
I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to say like I just celos de
um other tasks that shouldn't be paired on
I don't necessarily think so think you know you may find something
by Tom a to make sure that you you take breaks throughout the day
so you can kind of take a break from this intense situation
and then 17 once in a while you may not want to
you might want to take a break from caring altogether just assertive
take a break from that ultra intense
interaction you may need a break and I think that's ok and I think that that's
time does anybody have any questions thank you
the
well
the
the
the come

The scientific method is crap: Teman Cooke at TEDxLancaster

the scientific method sucks
now by that I don't mean that science sucks as a physicist I believe that
science has had countless benefits for Humanity
but when I was in eighth grade I learned about this thing called the scientific
method and since then i have done science
i have worked with other scientists and I've taught science to college students
to K through 12 teachers and two seventh graders middle schoolers and from these
experiences i've come to the conclusion that the scientific method sucks
if it's been a while for you as it has been for me since middle school
let me run through it real quick for you first of all
step one identify a problem step to do some research
step 3 form a hypothesis step 4 do an experiment with some independent
dependent variables to test your hypothesis that five analyze data
step 6 draw a conclusion it sounds good right
it certainly matches what we see on TV and in movies and what we see on the
news
unfortunately it completely misrepresents what scientists do and
what science is all about and this manifest in four main ways
first of all it's incredibly linear we start with a problem statement and we
end with a conclusion
this implies that science is something that's once and done fixed for all time
secondly it's not very intuitive
how do I choose a problem what do i do with my conclusion when i'm done if I
have no idea what should or even could happen
how do i come up with a hypothesis this makes the process intimidating and
dangerous
three there's a focus on conclusion reaching the conclusion on getting a
fact
well what happens when the information changes what happens when facts change
how does this process can
sure that and finally the focus on experimentation
now don't get me wrong i'm a big fan of teaching students to control for
whatever random variables they can but there's been a lot of really good
science that's been done without being able to control for a while
anything for a moment I'd like for you to imagine what budget
it would take to create a laboratory here on earth to study the interior of
Jupiter or 24 much star from scratch or to study the galaxies development
you want your tax dollars to go toward that
now you may be thinking oh it's probably not that bad at all
we've trained generations of scientists using the scientific method myself
included
surely i'm exaggerating
well let me walk through a few statistics with you
sixty-five percent of Americans have little to no idea what scientists do on
a day-to-day basis
fifty percent of them however have considered it
whatever it is dangerous thirty-two percent of middle schoolers of 8th
graders score at or above proficient see in science in 2011
the good news is that's up from thirty percent in 2009
the bad news is that implies that sixty-eight percent two-thirds middle
schoolers score below proficiency
thirty percent of elementary school teachers Phil well prepared to teach
science
now that's compared to fifty two percent you feel well prepared to teach social
studies
sixty-six percent who you're well prepared to teach mathematics and
seventy-seven percent who feel well prepared to teach reading and language
arts but here's my favorite statistic of all the one I find most telling of two
thousand parents surveyed in the UK fifty percent said that they feared
answering their children's questions about science questions like why is the
sky blue
and why is the moon out during the daytime
twenty percent one in five said that in response to such questions
they said no one knows or made something up
this concerns me as a culture as a civilization we fear science-y well I
believe there are three main sources of that first of all that working we're
obsessed with right answers we're obsessed with conclusions and as we go
further and further we learn more and more stuff we can't keep track of it all
in addition the fact those conclusions change
let me give you an example if you're like me when you were growing up there
were nine planets in the solar system in 2006 one of these things was eliminated
which brings me to my third point why
we don't understand how these decisions get made
we don't understand the thought process behind it now all of these problems
possibly don't lie of the feet of the scientific method but it's not helping
there is however a better way
let me introduce you to the cycle of scientific thinking this starts with
interesting observations
what counts is interesting well if you find yourself asking the question what
happened there
why did that occur what's going on
it's probably interested in the face of such questions
the human brain does an amazing thing it tries to come up with an answer
a story an explanation of what's going on
now a lot of people are perfectly happy to have an answer but scientists and
this is what makes scientists different from other people scientists want to
know if their answer is right and the way they do that is by saying well if my
explanation is true it is correct then I should also see this
they make a prediction and once you have a prediction the only thing left to do
is to go make-up observations to see if you are right and if you are but if
you're not if you're truly lucky and you got it wrong then that's going to bring
up more questions questions that require more explanation which leads to new
predictions and so on and so on and so on
no why
is this better well first of all it actually represents what scientists do
in fact postgraduate education and science is all about teaching people how
to take interesting observations ask pertinent questions and then develop
explanations that lead to observable predictions
this is science but secondly and more importantly it's much more intuitive and
much more engaging the power is in your hands
once you have an interesting question do you want to go to the library and read
up on other people's answers or do you want to skip all that and come up with
an answer of your own and see if you can make a prediction and test it
it's up to you that makes it much less intimidating from this as well it
becomes much more obvious how examples how explanations change over time
in fact there are only three possible things that can happen to a scientific
model
it makes the right predictions in which case it becomes stronger over time it
makes a few wrong predictions in which case it is modified over time or it
makes completely wrong predictions in which case it will be abandoned
over time the last great thing about this model is that it also eliminates
something that's very dear to my heart
the idea that any explanation must be able to be proven false and to explain
this i want to start with what would it take for me to show that my explanation
of the phenomenon is true with a capital T if it's true then every prediction it
makes should match the observations
how do i check that I have to check every observation
that's not every observation that i can make with my current budget that's not
every observation that i can make here in this amount of time that I have
it's every observation everywhere every win
it's not possible in order to prove
an explanation false however all i have to do is find out that it makes the
wrong predictions and then make sure that I didn't make a mistake
the way I think of this is to say if you give me a model that consistently
predicts the wrong thing i can say with certainty your model is wrong if you
give me a model that consistently predicts the right thing i can say with
certainty that your model is not wrong yet
let me give you an example in 1781
we found the planet Uranus but it did this really weird thing at certain
points in its orbit
it was further along than we expected based upon our models are understanding
of gravity and the other point in its orbit it hadn't traveled far enough
it was almost as if it was traveling too fast at some point and not fast enough
at other points astronomers looked at this and they said you know it looks a
lot like something is pulling it pulling it a little bit faster or a little bit
slower depending on where it is in its orbit
maybe there's a planet out there
maybe there's something interacting with it gravitationally and so they did the
calculations they found out where the planet should be and they pointed their
telescopes in the sky at that location
the planet they found we call Neptune today
now this was awesome to be able to do this and there were still discrepancies
in your illnesses orbit so they did calculations they said maybe there's
another planet out there
Planet X they did the calculations they figured out where that point it should
be and they point their telescopes into the sky at that point and they looked
and they found nothing
and this was a problem and they said okay but they continue to look and
eventually they saw something and it wasn't where they expected and it wasn't
really the size they expected but they said we found something and it's a
planet and we're going to call that thing
pluta fast-forward 60 years astronomers continue looking continued taking
observations and another one popped up
same size same composition
same location and then another one and another one and another one and another
one
an astronomer said that oh this is not looking so much like the other planets
this is looking like the asteroid belt a collection of objects that all share the
same orbit but aren't really planets not what we think of as planets and as the
evidence as the observations continue to build a stronger is ended up having to
abandon this explanation of Pluto is being a planet
it didn't fit in the same way we need to abandon the scientific model
it doesn't fit instead embrace the cycle of scientific thinking
you don't have to be an expert to do science
you don't have to know everything to answer your kids questions about science
even if the answer is I don't know what do you think
observe explain predict
that's enough it's good enough together as parents as educators and as
scientists we can prepare our kids our students our schools and our country for
the challenges of the 21st century and beyond
if we can learn to think differently about science
over time thank you very much