Introducing Team Ruby'n' Bugs
Hello everybody, we are Raluca and Thuy, located in Berlin, Germany.
Raluca: When I moved 3 years ago in Germany with my family, I also decided to change my career, from Assistant Manager to Developer. I struggled a lot, but being geek helped me to learn by myself Python and Java. Last year I discovered the neat world of Ruby, and I love it since. I am also volunteer at Rails Girls Berlin, to whom I thank because they helped me discover I am part of a large community, and not alone.
Thuy: I was working as an IT-buyer and a project manager in the design and tech industry before I decided to dive deeper into coding (first with html/css and a bit javascript). Apart from Rails Girls Berlin Team I volunteer in a few other non-profit projects focusing on Black and People of Color communities.
We have a Nuremberg based mentoring team of three people (Stella Rouzi, Christian Bruckmayer & Henne Vogelsang) in which Henne has the main role. And of course, we also have a team of coaches: Robert Siemieniec, Gustavo Guimarães and Hackership coaches. When we applied for the Rails Girls Summer of Code 2015, Hackership offered us a spot to stay and code, along with interesting workshops and talks during their summer batch in Berlin. Everything happens under the supervision of Qian Zhou who is currently located in Helsinki/Finland. As you see, we have a lot of great people to help and to support us. Thank you all, and thank you, Rails Girls Summer of Code, for the chance to take part in this program.
Why “Ruby’n’Bugs” ?
Well, first of all, it is funny :). And because Ruby and Bugs is like Ying and Yang, cannot have one without another. Well, maybe you can have bugs without Ruby, but where is the fun in that?
How did you hear about the RGSoC and why did you apply?
Raluca: I found out about RGSoC program during a Rails Girls Berlin beginners workshop. Lisa from Rubycorns presented the project with so much of enthusiasm and passion, that I entered the website to check what it is about. When I saw that it implies having mentors to guide you, working with experienced developers, and above all contributing to open source project (the dream of any beginner developer), I knew I have to try to be part of this program.
Thuy: I know about the RGSoC program since last year but didn’t consider to apply because I was working in full-time and coding was just a ‘nice to know’ occasion for me next to my daily job. Since I decided to intensify my coding skills this year and Raluca asked me 1 week before the application closed, I thought: why not trying, you never applied for a grant or scholarship in your life and the Ruby community is the most welcoming environment for beginners!
Within a week, we were a full team, with coaches and a coach company.
What project are we working on?
The Project we are working on is called Open Source Event Manager.It is an event management tool tailored to Free and Open Source Software conferences, which helps event organizers with call-for-papers submissions, scheduling, marketing and analytics. Since we are also co-organizers of events, the reason we have chosen this project is obvious.
What are we most looking forward to this summer?
At the beginning of this program, we thought that learning and contributing as much as we can to the project are the main goals. Meantime, we discovered another equal important goal: to learn how to work as a team. Having different backgrounds and interests is not always helping us to keep the team spirit. Not mentioning the lack of self-confidence, or stress, or a pesky bug to stubborn to be solved quickly. Perhaps the ultimate goal of this summer is: learn how to deal with any issue may occur, social- or code-related.
If you want to read more about our benefits, challenges & learning lessons of working as a team, please find it here.
Instead of “THE END”
Our journey just started, and we have a lot to share on the way. If you are curious about our progress, about our achievements and our struggles, please follow us on Twitter: @rubyandbugs, on the Teams App, and read our Medium blog posts from time to time.