Collaborate on a Surrealist Rails App

Surrealism is an artistic practice in which mundane but dissimilar ideas are juxtaposed to create surprising or nonsensical ideas. This has interesting results when applied to startup culture. In this workshop, rather than finding a market niche which can be exploited for fame, revenue, or power, we will be using our skills as Rails developers to create products with no practical use whatsoever. We will use a variation of the surrealist game Exquisite Corpse to create collaborative Rails apps, then present them to one another in a mockery of venture capitalism.

Transcript

1. Let’s Make Some
   Surrealist
   Rails Apps
   Terian Koscik
   @spine_cone
   RailsConf 2016!
   www.pineconedoesthings.com/surreal
   

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2. hello it’s me
   www.pineconedoesthings.com
   www.djangogirls.com/pycon
   www.twitter.com/spine_cone
   www.github.com/tpinecone
   

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3. ● What’s your name?
   ● What’s your experience with Rails?
   ● How do you like to be creative?
   

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5. (www.stupidhackathon.com)
   

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6. (www.stupidhackathon.com)
   

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8. What we’ll be learning today:
   ● What it’s like to work on an unfamiliar codebase
   ● How to feel comfortable making mistakes
   ● How to come up with and try out new ideas
   ● How to ask for help fearlessly and help others kindly
   

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9. What we won’t be learning today :(
   ● How to make an efficient Rails app
   ● How to make a useful Rails app
   ● How to make a profitable Rails app
   

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10. How often do you write software for fun?
    

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11. How we’re supposed to practice programming:
    (http://guides.rubyonrails.org/ and https://en.wikipedia.
    org/wiki/Quicksort )
    

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12. A more interesting way:
    

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13. (http://arsonanthemkj.deviantart.com/art/Figure-drawing-
    Foot-study-337331202)
    

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14. (http://www.wikiart.org/en/rene-magritte/the-red-model-1934)
    

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15. (www.google.com)
    

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16. I don't want words that other people
    have invented. All the words are other
    people's inventions. I want my own
    stuff, my own rhythm, and vowels and
    consonants too, matching the rhythm
    and all my own. If this pulsation is
    seven yards long, I want words for it
    that are seven yards long.
    -DADA MANIFESTO
    

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17. Agenda:
    ● Get into groups
    ● Figure out the version of Ruby/Rails you want your group’
    s apps to use
    ● Work on an app for 30 minutes (backend)
    ● BREAK (5 minutes)
    ● Pass your app to the person next to you, work on your new
    app for 30 minutes (frontend)
    ● Pass your app to the person next to you, work on your VC
    funding proposal (10 minutes)
    ● Presentations!
    

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21. CODE OF CONDUCT FOR TRADING USBS WITH PEOPLE
    Today we’ll be passing around USBs with our apps on
    them since we can’t rely on the internet being stable
    enough to use GitHub.
    Please be kind to your fellow attendees’ privacy and
    property.
    

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27. Working On “Frontend” vs. working on “Backend”
    ● Models and database schema are backend
    ● HTML, CSS, and Javascript are frontend
    ● Controllers and routes are ehhhhhh…
    Try not to obscure the original author’s intent too much,
    but if something looks clearly broken or unfinished go ahead
    and fix it.
    

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28. How to be awesome (if you’re a beginner):
    ● Ask questions!
    ● Google is your best friend
    ● It’s ok to cheat (steal ideas, steal code, copy and
    paste)
    ● Be proud of your work.
    

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29. How to be awesome (for experienced programmers):
    ● Help each other out
    ● Respect every question and person asking questions
    ● Try something ridiculous (when life gives you lemons make
    a RESTful Lemons API)
    ● If you know the right way to solve a problem, try the
    wrong way.
    

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30. ANTI-GOALS
    ● Creating something that could actually be useful or make
    money
    ● Writing clean code
    ● Doing things the way they’ve always been done
    ● Criticizing other people’s work
    

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31. ????????????????????????
    ????????????????????????
    Questions?
    ????????????????????????
    ????????????????????????
    

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32. TAKE A BREAK
    

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33. When you’re ready to trade apps...
    ● Put your repository on a USB (or git repo)
    ● Pass it to the next pair in your group
    

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34. When you’re ready to trade apps...
    ● Help the next pair in your group set up your app on their
    machine so they can take screenshots.
    ● Start the rails server.
    ● Give them a tour of your app.
    

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35. Your Startup Pitch
    Your app has been selected to be reviewed for
    funding! What is it going to disrupt? What is it
    going to be the Uber of? Tell us why your company
    deserves one billion dollars.
    

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36. Presentations!
    

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