First off, I had a great time at DCRUG last night. I enjoyed getting a peek at Jeff Casimir‘s “pre-alpha” presentation on Rails views. And Joel Strait‘s live demo of BEATS was very cool.

I did something a little different from my previous “Exceptional Ruby” talks. Since the time slot was limited to half an hour, I just picked five things most people don’t know about Ruby exceptions and went through them one by one. I think I enjoyed this talk more than any other I’ve given; with the pressure off to get through a ton of material in a short time, I was able to relax and just enjoy showing off some fun tricks. There’s video up already, thanks to JP Arnold.

RailsConf / BohConf

I will be presenting my talk “Confident Code“, on how to write Ruby code in a straightforward, narrative style, at RailsConf this Tuesday at 2:50PM, in Ballroom II. No, this is not the exceptions talk. However, if you want to hear me blab about failure handling, I’ll be hosting a guided exploration on Ruby exceptions on Tuesday evening at 5:30PM in the BohConf room. I’m thinking of doing a variation on the DCRUG talk, and just leading folks through some code examples that demonstrate little-known aspects of Ruby exceptions. It should be a lot of fun, I hope to see you there!

If you’re planning on attending RailsConf, be sure to track me down and say hi!

This seems like an opportune moment to once again mention that it’s through your help that I’m able to speak at conferences. Yes, I can drive down to RailsConf in Baltimore, but other conferences like Red Dirt entail considerable travel expenses. Donations to my travel fund are always much appreciated!

This site has been a dream of mine for a long time. I’ve worked with geographically distributed teams for a few years now, and this what I’ve observed: more and more software companies are embracing remote work, but there is no dedicated space for sharing stories, best practices, and lessons learned. Wide teams is an effort to fill this gap. I’ll be sharing what I’ve learned, but more importantly I’ll be gathering and sharing the experiences of other remote workers and leaders of distributed teams.

To kick off the knowledge sharing, I’ll be wandering the halls of RailsConf all week, microphone in hand and silly hat on my head, collecting stories from anyone who will talk to me. I’ll be looking for any and all experiences with remote work – successes, failures, and everything in between. These interviews will be published over the coming months in the form of a podcast.

If you are interested in the world of dispersed teams, I hope you’ll visit the blog, subscribe to the RSS feed, and follow the @wideteams account on Twitter. And if you’re at RailsConf and see me, please do introduce yourself!