RubyConf 2014 - Madam Sandi Tells Your Future by Sandi Metz

Umm also so tell me i was in the crowd yesterday and your hands aren't long enough so who's here for the first time at a Ruby conf?

God that's just amazing. Okay

If you're sitting next to one of those people you have 30 seconds in which you can introduce yourselves.

So do it.

Don't you just love Ruby conf?

It's an amazing thing.

Yeah that we can do this.

If you're new we're very very glad that you're here.

Alright alright come back now your time's up. Focus. Focus.

I knew that would happen if I let you go.

So Ruby Conf, the Ruby world is different. Okay I have to pay attention because I'm ad libbing.

This group, there is a way in which out in the real world we are not here we are all just passing.

You know that, you're all like always sort of on the look out for that extremely boring glazed look in the eyes of people that you're talking to.

And then we come here and then it's like just us. It's such a relief.

I find it so comforting to be in this room.

and part of it for those of you who are really new you may have not heard the acronym M-I-N-S-W-A-N

And I don't know if Matz is here this morning but that acronym stands for

Matz - Is - Nice - So - We - Are - Nice

Yeah! So here he is right in the front!

Matz is nice so we are nice.

And part of what makes us a community is like we're a community online but we're also a community because

we get to get together.

In a group like this

and if somebody makes that happen and I can promise you it is not me -- I suck at event organization.

In fact I got here yesterday morning and I asked the organizers

for some numbers about the conference

I suggested it might be interesting for everybody to know what the whole thing cost

and what part of that cost you're registration fee paid for.

and I wanted to know some other things like how many CVP proposals they evaluated,

like there's a ton of work somebody received the t-shirts, somebody got all the signs mades

somebody arranged the AV

and Abby who is one of the organizers told me that if I would send her an email she would answer despite

the fact that she had millions of things to do yesterday she would answer

me back that day just so I could tell you from stage.

And then of course I forgot to send that email.

And I got an email from her last night that said "What do you need? I will look those numbers up and get them to you by tomorrow morning."

And by that point I thought, it was enough really

it adequately demonstrated to me the difference between me and her already

so I don't have that data for you but what I am going to do

let's do two things, so somebody made it possible for us to be here

and I am enormously grateful

they not only did all the work

they got all the sponsors

and the sponsors are putting up money

and it really really matters

I'm gonna name thing, OpenGov, Bugsnag, Constant Contact, EngineYard, NineFold, StitchFix, PluralSight, RackSpace, WePay,

and all of the organizers who make it possible for us

to be here.

It's part of what makes us, our culture

gets built when we get to be together like this.

And so my job here is not to just be grateful to

be here

This morning I am here to tell you your future.

But and I am gonna do that

I'm gonna tell you you're entire, accurate future.

I'm gonna do that in about 29 minutes from now.

And between now and then I'm gonna tell you you're past.

At least your past if you look like me.

If you're of european descent.

If you're from west of here, if you're from Japan, China or Korea

Or if you're from south of here, any place

in the Americas.

You're story is a little bit different.

But all of these histories are like tributaries and

there is a stream, they form together in this stream.

and leave eventually to the present so that we're all here together

and this story, this story i'm gonna tell you starts with scrolls

first, invented perhaps as long as seven thousand years ago

and certainly they existed in Ancient Egypt