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The Rails Girls Are Coming to a City Near You (Video)

Posted by Roblimo on from the programming-not-trains dept.

So far, the Rails Girls have groups in cities ranging from Warsaw to Wellington, with U.S. gatherings in Washington D.C., Charlotte NC, San Francisco CA, and... let's make it easy: Here's a map. OMG! They're everywhere! Actually, mostly Europe, being as they started in Finland, same as the Leningrad Cowboys and a popular computer operating system. But they're spreading like mad. Would you believe the reason one of the two founders originally got interested in Ruby on Rails was because she wanted to make a fan page for American politician Al Gore? Our interviewee, Magda (from Rails Girls Warsaw), swears this is true. She also tells us about their upcoming Washington D.C. workshop on June 13th, 2013, in conjunction with the June 14-15 RubyNation event. Sounds like fun, doesn't it. Maybe you need more of this kind of fun where you live, eh? If there isn't a Rails Girls group near you, maybe you should start one and help more women and girls get into programming. This is the Rails Girls' goal. Any particular ages? Not really. And their workshops are all free of charge: "You just need to be excited!"

23 of 162 comments (clear)

  1. /. editors, please... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    For the love of god, stop snorting so much cocaine before writing a summary. Have some restraint and wait until afterwards.

    1. Re:/. editors, please... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      I think it was an exciting summary. I also feel very confident after reading it, as if I could do anything.

  2. Re:Naked? by Nadaka · · Score: 2, Informative

    Its great getting women into programming... but seriously, ruby on rails is shit.

  3. OMG Ponies! by 0xdeadbeef · · Score: 4, Funny

    Is this the thread where fat bearded forever alone guys make fun of girls doing stuff they do without needing their help or approval?

    1. Re:OMG Ponies! by SirGarlon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If by "make fun" you mean "unleash a torrent of abuse," then, apparently, yes.

      --
      [Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
    2. Re:OMG Ponies! by Mr.+Slippery · · Score: 2

      No, we should be promoting a having healthy BMI as a body image.

      BMI is actually a poor measure of health on an individual basis, as it doesn't distinguish fat from muscle. Body fat percentage is what we really need to be aware of. It's hard to measure accurately, though; skinfold or electrical impedance tests can help you track whether your own is going up or down but are hard to accurately translate into absolute numbers.

      --
      Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
      You cannot wash away blood with blood
  4. The Reason Why Journalists Matter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Journaists get a lot of flack, but at least they know how to construct a story. /. contributors on the other hand...

    Take the summary - not so much a summary as a prattling mess, that doesn't define its subject and so leaves the reader with no idea what on earth the text means.

  5. Slashdot just jumped the shark by HotNeedleOfInquiry · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It was fun while it lasted.

    --
    "Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
    1. Re:Slashdot just jumped the shark by girlintraining · · Score: 4, Informative

      It was fun while it lasted.

      It jumped the shark when they sold out to Dice. Now it's just another stagnating cesspool of hipsters who think owning an iPhone and have installed linux on their old dilapidated computer (and, quickly finding they couldn't do anything with it without RTFM, gave up, much like their collection of unread 'classic' books) makes them geeks. You can tell because when someone posts a well-written but politically unpopular comment, they're modded down, while one liners supporting the party line get +5s, though they're about as intellectually stimulating as a twinky is at being healthy.

      Nothing says "mainstream culture" like group think and people patting themselves on the back for regurgitating what the other 'popular people' say. Geeks, real ones I mean, have a wide diversity of opinion and frequently debate endlessly for hours over pointless minutae like whether Han shot first or not or rage over calling the 'higgs' the 'god particle'. In fact, you can usually tell you're in the company of fellow geeks because they're having a grand old time being disagreeable with each other, and in fact make a game out of it! Nothing charms a geek quite as much as vehemently disagreeing about which Star Trek captain was the best... and whipping out slide rules and technical manuals to have a proper go of it. Don't get me wrong though -- it's all faux outrage, with about as much real emotion as telling someone their favorite bands sucks. Yeah, okay, and?

      That's the difference. And that's what Slashdot has lost. There's no diversity of opinion anymore... which is another way of saying... there's not very many geeks left on the site... just pretenders...

      --
      #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    2. Re:Slashdot just jumped the shark by Trilkin · · Score: 2
      My favorite part about this post was how you derisively call people hipsters then immediately drop this gem:

      ...and have installed linux on their old dilapidated computer (and, quickly finding they couldn't do anything with it without RTFM, gave up...

      That's some crazy cognitive dissonance there. Yeah, how dare people try to use/learn something different in a safe environment rather than subject their main box to the possibility of data loss over something they may well not find any practical use for. How dare they give up when they find almost every resource available on the internet is about as 'friendly' as you are! That attitude is EXACTLY why Linux on the Desktop will never truly go anywhere meaningful as people will perceive all Linux users as unnecessarily hostile dorks who are more interested in perpetuating their circlejerk than actually helping people learn. This comment in general is worse yet, because you're actually giving people shit for trying to teach THEMSELVES something. Then, when they run into a manpage that may as well be written in another language, they ask for help and they get a snide response. You are what's wrong with Slashdot. The fact you actually care about your fucking nerd-point count (karma) is telling enough as to what you're really here for.

      --
      Nobody cares what the CAPTCHA for your post was.
  6. Re:Naked? by hawguy · · Score: 4, Funny

    Remember boys, no Dongles allowed at Rails Girls, and certainly no forking. Stick with Django if you're interested in forking dongles.

  7. Seems a bit sexist to me. by DumbMarketingGuy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Can you imagine if I set up a 'Rails Whites' group or a 'Rails African Americans' group? This is no different.

  8. Fangirling Al Gore, then Ruby on Rails? by The+Archon+V2.0 · · Score: 2

    Not exactly moving from strength to strength, there.... Unless "nicheiest fandom possible" is considered a strength.

  9. Re:Sexist by Dahamma · · Score: 5, Funny

    Teaching women/girls to use Ruby on Rails isn't so much sexist as downright misogynist and abusive...

  10. Re:Naked? by cod3r_ · · Score: 2

    something tells me is just going to be a bunch of dudes... Ironic that the rails girls video included a bunch of dudes.. My guess is they can't actually get any participation from women because women are not into ruby on rails.

  11. Re:Naked? by AtomicDevice · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I thought:
    "I bet the first comment on this article is going to be obnoxious and misogynist"

    I was right!

    --
    Ze Atomic Device! It iz Ztolen!
  12. Re:"Would you believe the reason..." by hairyfeet · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What lost me was when I clicked on the link and the page was covered in pencil doodles of kitties and ponies and crap. If you are trying to make it with a fricking band at least TRY to look somewhat professional, that thing looks like it was made by a 16 year old Twitard to declare whether they are with team shirtless or team shovelface...ugh.

    --
    ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  13. Equality via Exclusivity? by quietwalker · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I can understand the desire by many to attract more women into the CS/software dev field. I'm just not sure if the right way to do it is to emphasize one-gender-only programs. It seems to erode the basis of one of the more public goals; that women in the CS field be treated as equals with males in the CS field(*), while admittedly fulfilling other goals.

    We already know how 'separate but equal' turns out.

    I note above there's already a misogynistic note - even though it's just a joke - that some people are only interested if they're naked, so maybe there's a point anyway, at least in the short term.

    1. Re:Equality via Exclusivity? by jeffmeden · · Score: 2

      I can understand the desire by many to attract more women into the CS/software dev field. I'm just not sure if the right way to do it is to emphasize one-gender-only programs. It seems to erode the basis of one of the more public goals; that women in the CS field be treated as equals with males in the CS field(*), while admittedly fulfilling other goals.

      We already know how 'separate but equal' turns out.

      I note above there's already a misogynistic note - even though it's just a joke - that some people are only interested if they're naked, so maybe there's a point anyway, at least in the short term.

      As a point of special interest, it is worthwhile. Women generally have different wants/needs when it comes to events like these, not to mention the obvious benefit of giving attendees the comfort of knowing they won't be going to *another* fucking sausage fest tech conference. And they merely cater to women; men are perfectly welcome (for some definitions of welcome) to attend as well.

  14. Django Girls by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 2

    Django Girls can do it with only two fingers.

    --
    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
  15. Rails Girl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    I went to the first one in Wellington (New Zealand) this last weekend, and had an awesome time. Highly recommended to other ladies! If nothing else, it showed a number of people that ladies can have an effect on how things are built (and what), and that dev was doable, could be fun and interesting, and might even be a career path. A very positive outcome.

    And people - if you're going to say [coding language x] is shit, you should say _why_ :)

  16. Re:Naked? by Grishnakh · · Score: 2

    Python and PHP are the same shit as Ruby, different syntax.

    We're actually not talking about Ruby proper here, but Ruby on Rails.

    Anyway, Python and PHP both have far more support and popularity than Ruby. Getting a web host account that has PHP support is trivial (in fact, it'd be a real feat to get an account that doesn't support PHP these days), and Python is almost as trivial. Ruby, however, isn't that common.

  17. Re:Naked? by narcc · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Misogyny is all the rage in tech, gaming, and rationalist communities. I have no idea why, but I wish they'd tone it down.

    --
    Required reading for internet skeptics