BarCamp Miami was held February 28th, 2008, concurrent with the Future of Web Apps Miami conference (and shared the nice Carnival Performing Arts Center venue). Up until this point, I hadn’t been to a BarCamp, though I have participated in other unconferences before.

BarCamps evolve on the spot with regard to the content, and Miami was an eclectic mix of talks volunteered from many of the 250 or so participants. As a BarCamp newbie, I, of course, had to give a talk. The process was simple enough: volunteer a topic, grab a room on the grid, and then lead that session. Attending talks was pretty much the same: check the grid, go to the talk, and participate in discussion.

Talks in Brief

How Not to FAIL at Web Services

First stop was Gregg Pollack’s “How Not to FAIL at Web Services”. Gregg (cohost with partner Jason Seifer from the great Rails Envy podcast) dove in to how to conceptualize and build web service APIs the RESTful way. Unfortunately, when it comes to RESTful design, the world has fractured. Some have grokked Roy Fielding’s thesis from his doctoral dissertation and the subsequent implementation best practices in Ruby on Rails and other technologies. Others have interpreted RESTful APIs to simply mean using XML, or perhaps JSON, as a payload, and wacky URLs that spell out a full API call without regard to how HTTP really works. In Gregg’s assessment, the later will be a sure way to FAIL.

Does Rails Need More Love?

I had snagged an early time slot, so I wandered over to my designated room to prep. My talk was entitled Does Rails Need More Love? and focused on the problems facing designers and developers just learning Rails 2. As readers of BuildingWebApps.com and our blog have heard us say before, Rails 2 has fundamentally broken almost all documentation, books, tutorials, and other reference materials out there for new Ruby on Rails learners. I proceeded to explain this sad state of affairs, talk about what we are trying to do to help (BuildingWebApps.com as a commercial hub for resources, new articles under Creative Commons, free podcasts), and opened the floor to discussion of what people really need to help them learn.

I received a lot of good feedback about our site, as well as thoughtful commentary on the different materials people would like to see more of to learn Ruby on Rails (and really, any other web technology). Some of the top contenders were tutorials that stay current, book efforts similar to Python’s Django Book, and more newbie-friendly forums.

Should Kids Surf the Web?

After my session, I walked in to Jose Castillo’s talk about “Should Kids Surf the Web?”. This was interesting to me from two points of view: 1) as a parent of a couple of younger, computer-savvy kids, I’m always curious as to the latest ideas around children and technology; and 2) some of my previous start-up companies focused on children’s education and entertainment software, some of which was net related.

Jose is a great speaker and he showcased a recent project called GoTrybe, which is a kid’s goal-setting and physical-fitness-oriented social application that the state of Tennessee is helping to drive. The side discussion was interesting too, looking for ways to promote the positive aspects of Internet usage by kids and help fight fear-mongering and lack of knowledge (and common sense) among many who want to keep kids away from technology in general. No final solutions, alas!

Coworking: Because Working Alone SUCKS!

BuildingWebApps.com is a virtual company with respect to its physical offices. Since I spend a lot of time at my home office, it was with some interest I attended Alex Hillman’s talk “Coworking: Because Working Alone SUCKS!” talk.

Coworking is where you have a shared office space, with one or more other people working there, although not necessarily for the same company/job/project. It is a mash-up of office space, cafe culture, and camaraderie. Alex gave a number of examples of “how it works” with respect to finding space, finding compatible coworkers, building trust, general bootstrapping, logistics, etc.

It was refreshing to see the different approaches. I think the trick to kicking off a successful coworking space is having that critical mass of creative folks who “get it.” Living up in the Sierra Nevada foothills, I’m hoping I can find an opportunity to try coworking someday.

Launch Your Company in 48 hours

OK, that wasn’t the name of the talk, but the guys over at Tasty Planner presented their company and product. Tasty Planner was conceived of and initially built as an entry in 2007’s Rails Rumble Contest.

Rails Rumble is the Iron Man Triathlon of Ruby on Rails programming. Your team has 48 hours to build from scratch a compelling application.

Tasty Planner is a menu creation, planning, shopping, and sharing application that seems pretty cool. The four team members discussed their approach and key take-aways. Most important, they:

1. agreed to make decisions quickly,
2. had mostly clear areas of responsibility, and
3. consumed a lot of caffeine.

Things went so well that one team member took time to go to a concert too! This was a fun talk and we all got to check out the heavy weight prize.

BarCamp Takeaways

BarCamp is all about networking. While the sessions were excellent, even better was the chance to mingle between sessions and in the hallways, making contacts and exchanging ideas. If you have a chance to attend a BarCamp (be sure to check the official BarCamp wiki, they are literally being organized around the world), do try to give a talk. It is the fastest way to start meeting people.

Resources

Flickr Pictures from BarCamp Miami

Official BarCamp Miami Page

Articles Revolving Around BarCamp Miami