BaRuCo. It’s not just the talks, it’s the people.
Well, it’s after BaRuCo. We came back refreshed, full of new energy to work. We would like to tell you about this conference very subjectively, about our impressions, which consists of four elements: atmosphere, talks, community and Barcelona.
Atmosphere
This is indescribable. The amounts of energy at BaRuCo is comparable to the energy at a concert of a popular rock star. A huge joy, warm applause before and after each talk, a lot of discussion and a lot of fun in the evening conference parties. A big plus for the organizers for a large number of women among the speakers. Ruby is a girl’s best friend. ;)
Talks
To be honest, we were not expecting to take so much advantage of the merits of such a conference. Meanwhile, even for such newbies as we, this conference was very stimulating, and giving new perspective on object-oriented programming. While our notes are mainly a list of incomprehensible concepts, which we now check in google, which is also learning. We definitely will be going back to those talks and we encourage you to watch them online when they are available. Our favorite was Sandi Metz with her “Nothing is something” talk. The way Sandi explains things is absolutely wonderful. In very simple and precise examples, we could see what the object-oriented thinking is, how inheritance should look like, what is a good composition and how to use dependency injection. And we definitely want to read her book “Practical Object Oriented Design in Ruby” - it’s waiting on the shelf. We look forward to the publication of all the talks, to be able to see them again and understand more. We very strongly encourage you to do the same. Many of the talks were on high technical level, but there were also others, inspiring with their uses of metaphors and comparisons, for instance comparing programming to building skyscrapers or to poetry. This is one of our thoughts after the conference: even if you can not be at the conference - watch talks online! We also have to mention that we met there a lot of famous people like Ruby chief designer, Yukihiro Matsumoto or Aaron Patterson from Rails Core Team. Yay!
Community
On BaRuCo site we can read “It’s not just the talks, it’s the people”. And It’s really true. It’s very inspiring and encouraging how open and friendly people at that Ruby conference were. We were very surprised. People were willingly explaining to us, if we didn’t understand parts of the talks or some concepts, we could asked freely even about basic things and reactions were always very warm and kind. We would say that Ruby Community is a great environment for female beginner programmers. Do not be afraid to participate in such events and do not be afraid to ask for even quite basic things. Remember that there are always people who would support you.
And Rails Girls community is even better. We met Paulina & Maria - Rails Girls Barcelona organizers, and these girls are amazing! We shared our experience about organizing such events like Rails Girls or regular programming classes for women. It is really amazing how strong that idea is and how many people want to participate in this without any profits (besides lots of joy).
We’ve also met closer our super supervisor Magda and she is the best supervisor ever! We spend a lot of time with her and her colleagues from DaWanda. Thank you guys for a wonderful time and help in understanding talks!
Barcelona
And finally, Barcelona … very European city, vibrant, upbeat and interesting even just for simple walking down the streets. There are so many things you can do in Barcelona: there is a seaside and mountains as well. This never sleeping city is full of cafes, pubs and has plenty of interesting cultural and art institutions. We managed just to taste the artistic side of Barcelona and certainly we will go back there. Maybe next year for the next edition of BaRuCo?