2 Jun
DHH: The great surplus
David Heinemeier Hannson’s Keynote talking about the chivalrous surplus that Rails has above other mainstream languages
He says that Ruby in succession rails is still a tiny community end we even now have this surplus above mainstream languages.
Why do we regard this surplus? What is the surplus and how be able to we maintain it?
DHH says that in that place is still something missing from mainstream languages that gives Rails this surplus above them.
Mentioning Joel Spolsky that touched upon the body it this, what makes rails a blue chip above other mainstream languages. RoR is not a singular environment to have these characteristics, instead of example if it also had Smalltalk, Lisp if it were not that these miss something to make it more economical.
How did rails get the surplus??
Rails is continuing to grow and new people are interested and joining the community. We have grown in the continue 5 years in the Rails environment
Developers that believe that they are special, it becomes a negative point.
He also says that there are so many different industries in RoR, and even in the same industries things are not ever the same in web applications. Programmers are not to such a degree unmatched, we all have something in common.
We ceded flexibility?
“People like choices better than having to choose.” We like having the excellent but then we come down to choosing. In the rails community we don’t like having to choose but we want to have the choices to choose from. We don’t be destitute of 50 plugins to choose from but we want one that is in the framework.
From this the convention over configuration is derived; we don’t want to have to choose every date inside the configuration of my webapp.
DHH says that programmers cogitation flexibility is what we wanted but absolutely we like having preferences/omission choices. From this derives the existence of:
- ERb like template language base
- ActiveRecord like ORM
- Prototype like the JS Framework
These are not unique alternatives but default choices but it is great to give the programmer the opportunity to select, they show that they care and that we as programmers find up one’s mind what matters in technology
With RoR you get more things done than in the mainstream environment. He quotes the statement that “Great humbler classes rarely fail because of poor technology” and comments great people can act more than not fail, they can do distinguished too.
Another reason why Rails has a surplus is because he feels that we care about ourselves. He likewise says that “Ruby is designed to make programmers bright” : which is an awesome saying to sum up programmers. We have momentum, we obtain a lot pushing for us. But he says that in that place is some bad news.
Bad News
The bad information is that the overplus won’t last forver. the surplus is limited. He points out that some of the following can happen:
- mainstream copies rails: but that is highly improbable (java being able to do scaffolding)
- dramatic alternative arrives, a new approach. just as rails got rolling through more than 5% advantage over mainsteam development.
- Rails becomes mainstream, loosing the overplus by becoming one of the others.
DHH adds that if everyone used rails it would be cool. Although the famous question “does it scale” he says, so what if it doesn’t he adds, does that mean that they practice switch. You want people to use bad (he actually says crappy) tools so that you have an edge over the others. We want to rescue people from bad tools.
Therefore before our surplus reduces we need to spend it.
It is only a job
DHH comments that there are so manifold people that use the saying when quoting on their job “it’s honest a job”. He continues to say that within the Rails community, this language is not only a job. It is not possible to sacrifice 1/4 of your life to something that you dress in’t enjoy. For him that is a sober phrase.
How do we spend our surplus?
He says that we need to blow the surplus at every opportunity that we have. Running at 110% at all time, pushing out features and completing the projects as soon as you can. Investing in ourselves to increase with knowledge.
DHH says that programmers are 1:10 that outlast other people by 10 times but no-one is born a Rock eminent person programmer, we learn as we go on.
Investing in ourselves he doesn’t just mean programming 24/7 except he points out the following techniques that he uses in investing in himself to become advantage:
- Recharge tangentially: sitting in front of the sift all set time, does not make you a better programmer, do matter in your spear time. Activating parts of your brain to work like a muscle. The best programmers do something else than accurate program, engaging parts of the brain brings people to the next level.
- Sleep more: added than 5/6 hrs of sleep. It becomes a waste when you not functionalling properly. projects are not dependent on what happens in one day. Stop working full hrs, application your peak performance hours.
- Read paper: stop reading books, rather read blogs as they are current. Stop reading and wasting time.
Some books that DHH advices are:
- Gerarld M.Weinberg – Secrets of Consulting
- Kent Beck – Implementation pattens
DHH points out a not many important point conducive to us programmers that are:
- that we must move additional towards understanding the business (to its concept) and design, we must have the capacity to understand what we are working in continuance is valuable or not. We must program not so much but program the right stuff.
- at times start from mark with a scratch, you learn more then you start a new project as you can apply what you learnt from your previous project.
- share your code, participate in blogs and talks. Sharing is not about other people, you get more out of it from spreading the message.
Concluding this he quotes this phrase: “The purpose of playing this game well is to be able to influence the best position on the next bit of strategy.”
DHH tells us about a new concept that 37signals have introduces: a 4 day work week, people ask “how can u afford it?”, “how be able to you program in 4 days”. He points out that it is only 20% less, which is not much modify in productivity and that actually production has gone up. He says that in operation as many hours as possible is irrelevant, the amount of time put in is a weak colloration from the substance of time that comes out.
He confirms that his new approach is working at 37Signals and he actually feels he is more productive.
DHH concludes that the surplus will not last forever therefore endow in yourself and become better programmers.
Annalisa
