Ruby, Rails, and Winning Lightning Talk

Given as a Lightning Talk at Lone Star Ruby Conference V (2011) in Austin, Texas.

Transcript

1. Ruby, Rails, and Winning Mark McSpadden LSRCV 08/2011 Sunday, August 14, 2011
2. WHO AM I? MARKMCSPADDEN ON THE GITHUB AND THE TWITTER Sunday, August 14, 2011
3. What have I been up to? Google Code Jam (2009, 2010, 2011) O’Reilly/Fluidinfo Writeable API Contest Donors Choose Hacking Education Contest Evernote Developer Competition Tropo LSRCV Contest Sunday, August 14, 2011
4. BOOKCHIRPA.COM BIG WINNER! Sunday, August 14, 2011
5. CHARITYCHIRPA.COM WILDCARD WINNER! Sunday, August 14, 2011
6. ELEPHANTTRACKSAPP.COM LOSER! (SAD TROMBONE) Sunday, August 14, 2011
7. but this is not about ME... Sunday, August 14, 2011
8. this is about YOU... Sunday, August 14, 2011
9. you can WIN these contests Sunday, August 14, 2011
10. and get better as a side effect Sunday, August 14, 2011
11. Why contests? Technical Cross Training Product Development Cross Training Time Limits Prizes!!! Sunday, August 14, 2011
12. Where do I find these? http://www.programmableweb.com/contests http://challenge.gov http://twitter.com/#!/search/developer%20contest Sunday, August 14, 2011
13. Where do I find the time? optimize the 9 to Midnight window sleep less have less friends Sunday, August 14, 2011
14. Examples Google Code Jam Yahoo Labs KDD Cup (past) Donors Choose Hacking Education Occupational Employment Statistics Challenge Sunday, August 14, 2011
15. Solve a Problem Contests Pros: Short time frame, Focused problem sets Cons: Lower barrier to entry, No “presentable” results Think MATH and Test Test Test Sunday, August 14, 2011
16. Build an App Contests Pros: Freedom, Presentable results, Human judges, Advantages in using Ruby and Rails Cons: Time intensive, Subjective judging Get API Keys early, prepare for delays Sunday, August 14, 2011
17. Getting Started: Getting Ideas Don’t do your first idea Don’t do an idea mentioned as an example Do talk it out with others Do consider the judges and criteria Sunday, August 14, 2011
18. Getting Technical: Random Advice Test the critical parts (if you want) Don’t try too many new things Rely heavily on gems Know that you may have to (get to) tweak or release some OSS Sunday, August 14, 2011
19. Deployment Heroku. Heroku. Heroku. Buy a domain. Setup DNS. Do this early. Get some early testers Sunday, August 14, 2011
20. Submit! Sunday, August 14, 2011
21. Wait... Sunday, August 14, 2011
22. And Wait... Sunday, August 14, 2011
23. And wait... Sunday, August 14, 2011
24. THE JOY OF VICTORY Sunday, August 14, 2011
25. THE AGONY OF DEFEAT Sunday, August 14, 2011
26. Current Contest Resources http://www.programmableweb.com/contests http://challenge.gov http://twitter.com/#!/search/developer%20contest Sunday, August 14, 2011