I am at RubyConf Mini and it has been a good learning experience. John Hawthorne gave a master class on optimizing something in the Ruby programming language in his presentation on making is_a? fast. Stephanie Minn taught us how to pair program with non-violent communication. Finally Brown Professor Barbara Tannenbaum gave us a crash course in effective communication.

Swag Bag Round-up

• Socks from every sponsor made in the USA by Sock Club.
• How DNS Works by Julia Evans makes it easier to understand…how DNS works!
• Stickers!
• It’s a convenient way to package everything together, but I did not need yet another re-usable tote bag. I would love to see places start using printed paper bags as a less wasteful alternative.

The Gift of In-Person Conference is Focus

Having a few days to ignore the day job and focus on the content is more effective than trying to process it from home on video. The reality is I am likely to ignore or skip lots of video content. Whereas in-person content is digested more easily. So for that, I am grateful to be attending in-person this year.