RailsConf 2017 in tweets, and my “Why Do Planes Crash?” lightning talk
RailsConf 2018 starts in exactly one month, and I’m looking forward to it! This means I should probably get around to saying something about RailsConf 2017. The video above is cued to start at the beginning of a lightning talk I gave. The title was “Why Do Planes Crash? Lessons for Junior and Senior Developers.” Analyses of plane crashes show planes actually crash more often when the senior pilot is in the flying seat, often because junior pilots are reticent to speak up when they see problems, while senior pilots don’t hesitate to do so when the junior pilot is flying. There are some great lessons developers can apply from this for how to do mentoring and pair programming.
The lightning talks were at the end of the 2nd day, and I made a last minute decision that morning to sign up and put a talk together. I’ve given a number of conference talks before, but never to a crowd this big, and never with so little time to prepare. Then when it was time to give the talk, there was a technical issue that prevented me from seeing my notes, so I had to wing it. Under the circumstances I think it still turned out ok. Here are my slides (they’re also embedded below) and some tweets about the talk:
Excited I'm near the top of the list for #railsconf lightning talks! “Why do planes crash? A lesson for developers.” Now I have to prepare 😨 pic.twitter.com/M04Oyp2peL
— Michael Toppa (@mtoppa) April 26, 2017
Great lightning talk by @mtoppa on "Why do Planes Crash" at #RailsConf2017 pic.twitter.com/o0fpRXarxZ
— Braulio Carreno (@bcarreno) April 27, 2017
Something to remember. #railsconf pic.twitter.com/44HfEvHT2r
— Heather Herrington (@EventsDoctor) April 27, 2017
@mtoppa showed us the dangers of mitigated speech at #railsconf. Save lives, don't sugarcoat! And value your junior developer's perspective.
— Adam Bowen (@adamnbowen) April 27, 2017
A thought as I board this plane out of Phoenix. Listen to those less experienced, and if you see something say something #railsconf #lessons pic.twitter.com/hHxqSsAsKY
— Santiago (@San_QG) April 28, 2017
Here are my slides for "Why do planes crash? Lessons for junior and senior developers" Thanks #railsconf! https://t.co/aoeEIZ2Kgy
— Michael Toppa (@mtoppa) April 27, 2017
I work for ActBlue and we provided Opportunity Scholarships for people who normally wouldn’t be able to attend, for financial or other reasons.
We adore our Opportunity Scholars and Guides! Big thanks too to @actblue for funding so many Scholars' travel as well; it's a huge help! 💗💗 pic.twitter.com/xwOuPMYGhb
— RailsConf (@railsconf) April 27, 2017
4 of us from ActBlue attended, and my co-worker Braulio gave an impressive full-length talk explaining how our technical infrastructure supports close to 8,000 active organizations, and handles peak traffic like the 2016 New Hampshire primary night, when our traffic peaked at 300,000 requests per minute and 42 credit card transactions per second.
This is the @ActBlueTech delegation that attended #RailsConf2017 We had a blast! @actblue #railsconf pic.twitter.com/kDHxzui2Dh
— Braulio Carreno (@bcarreno) May 2, 2017
Come to "High Performance Political Revolutions" to see what it looks like to handle complex transactions at scale in Rails #railsconf https://t.co/KzC1bGNKU1
— Michael Toppa (@mtoppa) April 27, 2017
On New Hampshire primary night, @actblue’s Rails app processed 40 credit card transactions/sec for Bernie Sanders #railsconf pic.twitter.com/9OqDtknKPN
— Michael Toppa (@mtoppa) April 27, 2017
"High Performance Political Revolutions" by @bcarreno #railsconf pic.twitter.com/6Z2DMpjWRs
— savannah ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🖤 (@Savannahdworth) April 27, 2017
Slides for High Performance Political Revolutions (High Volume Track) https://t.co/ZzlwwwBqwZ #RailsConf #RailsConf2017
— Braulio Carreno (@bcarreno) April 27, 2017
Here are some other highlights from the conference…
This is a really impressive, honest talk & unlike any tech conference talk I've ever seen, which is both wonderful and very sad #railsconf https://t.co/fqoq9Ehmcy
— Michael Toppa (@mtoppa) April 27, 2017
Such an amazing keynote by @polotek here at #railsconf. pic.twitter.com/Io9TsqZVoe
— Marlena Compton (@marlenac) April 27, 2017
Video of Marco Roger’s talk mentioned above.
I had such so much fun sharing the story of goldilocks, the rails dev, with you all today, #railsconf! Slides here: https://t.co/0FcnDEycq1
— Vaidehi Joshi (@vaidehijoshi) April 25, 2017
Slides from my #RailsConf talk Learning to Embrace Failure. Now I can focus on enjoying the rest of the conference! https://t.co/p2fxlf9xdp
— Jess Rudder (@JessRudder) April 26, 2017
Here are my slides from my Practical Debugging talk at #railsconf: https://t.co/Cw6GZVEgph. I had a great time sharing it with you all!
— Kevin Deisz (@kddeisz) April 26, 2017
A group of us took in a Diamondback’s game the night the conference ended, and then the next morning a couple of us headed to the Desert Botanical Garden before flying home.
Finishing #railsconf with some baseball! pic.twitter.com/o2NtvxguKj
— Michael Toppa (@mtoppa) April 28, 2017
Staying in Phoenix one more day after #railsconf. The botanical gardens are amazing, and – who would have guessed – full of cactuseses pic.twitter.com/Ejvq4CduBb
— Michael Toppa (@mtoppa) April 28, 2017
Lastly, here are the slides from my lightning talk: