[Events] Unanswered questions about Railsbridge

[Karen Rustad]

The sessions were not at all distinguished by content -- those were just the
points at which we took breaks. Throughout all four sessions we went through
the tutorial (on the wiki), punctuated by lectures as we got to relevant
things (in order (iirc): basic explanation of HTTP / talking to servers,
what load balancing w. multiple servers looks like conceptually, git 101,
m-v-c separation, and finally the basic elements of ruby/programming
(functions, classes, variables, etc.)). If I had to, I'd say there was more
lecture in sessions 1 and 2 than 3 and 4, but there was at least a little
bit of "let's pause in the tutorial and talk about what the heck is going on
in the background here" in all four.

I think even the low programming groups at least got the basic topic posting
app running and deployed (on Heroku), though I don't think everyone got to
implementing e.g. voting (the last bit of the tutorial). However, most
groups didn't have as much lecture or background information--most didn't
have *any* of that stuff, I suspect. Also, I don't think I talked to anyone
who hadn't at least *tried* to go through a tutorial or otherwise read about
Ruby or another programming language on their own prior to attending.

The TAs thought Francis' background info was helpful, so I think they're
going to try to standardize the curriculum to include his spiels /
whiteboard drawings in all the groups. Who knows what that'll do in terms of
beginner-section completion rates, though, I suppose.

-- Karen

On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 2:29 PM, Asheesh Laroia <asheesh at asheesh.org> wrote:

> Thanks to all who came to the meeting today. It was super productive! I'm
> looking forward to the minutes that jesstess will mail to the list.
>
> We had some as-yet unanswered questions about RailsBridge -- Karen, I
> thought maybe you could answer these, or if not, say so!
>
> (This is what it looks like when I try to black-box reverse-engineer
> RailsBridge.)
>
> 1. What is the schedule like, precisely?
>
> This what the website says. Is it accurate? What were session 1/2/3/4 for
> you? Which ones specifically had "lecture"? Which ones were mostly you
> hacking?
>
>     9:30 registration coffee/tea
>
>     10am-10:20 large group presentation: why we're doing this workshop, why
> are you doing this workshop? (people raise hands), highlights of women in
> computing, what  participants can expect from the workshop (do we want
> anything of them  after they leave?)
>
>     10:30-11:20 session 1
>
>     11:30-12:20 session 2
>
>     12:30-1:30 lunch
>
>     1:30-2:20 session 3
>
>     2:30-3:20 session 4
>
>     3:30-4pm large group wrap up
>
> 2. Do people really come to RailsBridge never having programmed before, and
> leave with a deployed Rails app?
>
> There was some incredulity. So maybe you can answer this. Admittedly you
> had some programming experience, but maybe you talked with other people who
> didn't.
>
> -- Asheesh.
>
> --
> Must I hold a candle to my shames?
>                -- William Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice"
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>
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