Desi McAdam

I spoke at RubyEast this past Friday and I think the presentation went pretty well. It was my first presentation in a speaker/audience type setting so I was very nervous. I have presented at Agile 2006 but it was a game (interactive) and was co-presented by several other people. This presentation was the first time I stood in front of a room full of people and spoke and everything went very well. Like I said I was really nervous but as soon as I got started the nervousness went away. I think I am very lucky because I was able to present to a room full of very nice/cool people and that made the experience a great one. I want to actually thank the people who came to hear me present and who gave me great feedback and encouragement afterwards it really made my day. If you are interested here are the slides for the presentation. A Tour Of Rails Testing using RSpec

I didn’t get to see many of the sessions because I was busy preparing for my talk but I was able to catch Obie’s presentation - Advanced ActiveRecord which was really good (and I am not just saying that because he is my boyfriend). I also caught the ending Keynote where Nap (I actually don’t know his real name) announced the Rails Rumble winners. There were several screencasts and it made me wish that Obie, Clay, Nick and I would have had time to get the video that was shot of us over the weekend edited and ready for prime time. We had a blast doing the competition and while we didn’t win (we got honorable mention) we learned a lot and I think we all grew closer in those 48 hours. The teams that did win did a tremendous job on their apps and well deserved the loot. Take a look at the winners there really are some great apps. Rails Rumble Winners

Friday evening a bunch of people got together after the conference and played several games of Werewolf which is a really fun game to play. I got to know a lot of people during that game and it was a great way to wind down.

Couple of other thoughts before I end the post. ShesGeeky (un)Conference sounds like it is going to kick major ass so any of you ladies out there who can attend make sure you get registered. Additionally, ladies if you want to talk during the conference please contact the organizers.

GrrrlCamp seems to be getting a good footing. I was lucky enough to meet THE Gloria this past Friday and I look forward to being a part of GrrlCamp.

I have taken on an apprentice and she will soon be posting to the blog about her experiences. I am in the process of trying to see if creating an apprenticeship type program run by DevChix is possible because after speaking with Sonia (one of the women on DevChix) she helped me figure out that I would really like to have a program that fits the apprenticeship model rather than a mentoring program. Look for more to come on this in the future.