ShRUG, the big debate

Being a programmer is about more than just writing code. We spend a lot of time working as a team, communicating our ideas and persuading people that our solutions will give the best possible outcomes. There are plenty of ways to hone your programming skills (dojos, katas etc.) but honing the way you communicate as a developer is often overlooked.

To address this, this month we’ll be holding ShRUG’s first debate meeting. We’ll be looking for people to present on a topic of their choice to the group in one of two styles: either try to convince the group on a controversial topic or pair up with another member and debate opposing sides of an issue. We’ll also have some group debates, time permitting. If you really want to get your brain going then maybe try arguing an idea where you would normally believe the opposite.

There’s no right or wrongs or winners or losers for this session, just a chance to practice being persuasive, explore what good communication means and hopefully share some knowledge in the process.

To get you all going, here are a few ideas that you could debate on the night (don’t forget, you could always argue the opposite!):

• MiniTest is better than RSpec
• You don’t need to write tests if you’re a good developer
• Ruby is the best language
• Rails is dead, long live front-end frameworks!
• DHH is a force for good
• Rails makes you a bad developer
• Actually, the old-style hash syntax is better than the new one…

As usual, this meet up relies on the contributions of our excellent ShRUGgers, so let us know what you want to debate on.

Thanks to Luke Roberts for the idea for this session.

Where

With the help of epiGenesys, we’re at the Enterprise Zone this month.

Join our Google+ event to let us know you’re coming.

Someone will be around from 18.45 if you’re around and we’ll probably head out to the pub afterwards.