I enjoy presenting at conferences, mainly held in person at interesting destinations, that arenât a royal PITA to get to, and reimbursing my travel expenses. (I generally do not do remote conferences, unless they are within three timezones of US-East.) I will also talk to a company (or their devs), for a fee (plus all expenses).
Topics
The talks I am currently pitching include:
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My ACRUMEN definition of software quality (title: âWrite Better Software with ACRUMENâ). I can also do this as a lightning talk or a keynote.
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Mutation testing (title: âKill All Mutants! (Intro to Mutation Testing)â). I have prepared versions with the code in several programming languages, and lengths from 20 minutes to a bit over an hour (plus Q&A).
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Genetic Algorithms (title: âTight Genes: Intro to Genetic Algorithmsâ). Yes I do mean genetic, not generic! This one includes lots of code (but not live coding), currently in Ruby or Python, but I could certainly translate it into other languages if you want. I have versions prepared from 30 minutes to 50.
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TDD (Test Driven Development) (title: âTDD like a Viking: Making Mead with JavaScript!â). This talk describes the benefits and process of TDD, and walks through several examples as I develop some helpful calculators for brewing mead. There is quite a lot of code, but it is not live-coded. Unlike most of my talks, this is only in JavaScript.
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Ruby âgotchasâ (title: âRuby Gotchasâ). I have done this for local user groups, for about 45 minutes. It details some of the unexpected rough edges of Ruby, that are contrary to what one might expect, based on expectations built up by âmost other languagesâ, or common sense. Unlike most of my talks, this is only in Ruby.
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Ping-Pong Pair Programming (title: âWhose Line of Code Is It Anyway?â). This is a hands-on demo with a co-speaker or a volunteer from the audience (or series of them), working on a problem and (at polyglot conferences) in a language both chosen by the audience (from a relatively small set).
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Making mead (title: âDrink Like a Chinese Egyptian Ethiopian Filipino Finnish Greek Indian Lithuanian Mayan Nepalese Polish Welsh Xhosa Viking: the History and Making of MEAD!â). Yes, this is not a technical thing, at least in the computer sense. ;-)
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Breaking into conference speaking (title: âYou Wanna Say Somethinâ?â). This includes things like why you might want to talk at a conference, how to find the conferences, how to apply to speak at them, and a few basic public speaking tips.
I also have some five-minute âlightningâ talks prepared:
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Why we prepend to lists, instead of appending, when using immutable data, as is used with most âfunctionalâ programming languages.
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Five-minute versions of my ACRUMEN and mead talks.
Want me to speak on something not covered above? Ask me, and weâll see.
Definite Future Speaking Engagements
I have no definite speaking engagements in the future.
Past Engagements
Speaking engagements in the past include:
Year | Conference | Where | Topic(s) | Link(s) | Mins |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2023 | NDC Oslo | Oslo, Norway | Genetic Algos | slides (video coming soon) | 60 |
2023 | TEQnation | Utrecht, Netherlands | Genetic Algos | slides (video coming soon) | 45 |
2023 | J on the Beach | MĂĄlaga, Spain | Genetic Algos | slides video | 30 |
2023 | PyCon US | Salt Lake City, UT, USA | Mutants | slides video | 30 |
2023 | Frontrunners DC | Arlington, VA, USA | ACRUMEN | slides, video | 23 |
2023 | THAT Conference | Austin, TX, USA | Genetic Algos | slides* | 60 |
2022 | Central Texas Mensa Monthly Speaker Meeting |
Online (to Austin, TX, USA) | Mead | none | ~50 |
2022 | TechBash | Pocono Manor, PA, USA | Mutants | slides* | ~50 |
2022 | Nerdear.LA | Online (to Buenos Aires, Argentina) | Genetic Algos | repo, video | 30 |
2022 | Voxxed Days Athens | Athens, Greece | Mutants | slides, video | 41 |
2022 | GambiConf EU | Lisbon, Portugal | Mutants | slides, video | 29 |
2022 | MWM RG 2022 (Metropolitan Washington Mensa Regional Gathering) |
Reston, VA, USA | Mead | video | 62 |
2022 | THAT Conference | Wisconsin Dells, WI, USA | Mutants | slides* | |
2022 | NDC Melbourne | Melbourne, Australia | Mutants | slides, video | 50 |
2022 | Code BEAM Europe | Stockholm, Sweden | Mutants | slides, video | 41 |
2022 | ACCU (Ass'n of C/C++ Users) |
Bristol, UK | Mutants | slides, video | 70 |
2021 | Polyglot Podcast, released 2021-12-01 |
Online | ACRUMEN and other software quality |
audio, transcript | 44 |
2021 | Scenic City Summit | Online (to Chattanooga, TN, USA) | Mutants | slides+ | ~40? |
2021 | Scenic City Summit | Online (to Chattanooga, TN, USA) | ACRUMEN | slides+ | ~40? |
2021 | Code Europe Warsaw | Warsaw, Poland | Mutants | slides+ | ~55? |
2021 | Code Europe Gdansk | Gdansk, Poland | Mutants | slides+ | ~55? |
2021 | Kansas City Developer Conference (KCDC) |
Kansas City, MO, USA | Mutants | slides* | |
2020 | NDC Sydney | Online, darnit! (to Sydney, Australia) | Mutants | slides, video | 52 |
2020 | DevTalks Bucharest / Reimagined |
Online, dagnabit! (to Bucharest, Romania) | Mutants | video | 31 |
2020 | Ruby Rogues Podcast | Online | Mutants | audio | 68 |
2020 | JSConf Hawai'i | Waikiki, HI, USA | Mutants | video | 22 |
2019 | RubyConf | Nashville, TN, USA | Mutants | video | 39 |
2019 | Little Rock Tech Fest | Little Rock, AR, USA | ACRUMEN | video | 45 |
(Sorry for the bad audio, they don't record, so it's from my phone on a tripod, and slightly cleaned up) | |||||
2019 | Heartland Devconf | Omaha, NE, USA | Mutants | video | 44 |
(recorded on my phone, since they don't record sessions) | |||||
2019 | Maintainable Software Podcast |
Online | ACRUMEN | audio | 44 |
2019 | Elixir Remote Meetup (September) |
Online | Mutants and Prepending |
video | 45 |
2019 | Ruby on Rails Podcast | Pittsburgh, PA, USA | Mutants | audio | 24 |
(My first podcast!) | |||||
2019 | Abstractions II | Pittsburgh, PA, USA | Mutants | (none) | |
(They recorded it but messed it up) | |||||
2019 |
American Mensa's Annual Gathering |
Phoeniz, AZ, USA | ACRUMEN | (none*) | 75! |
(Again, more aimed at feedback than teaching, taking advantage of their long timeslots (and big brains)) | |||||
2019 | Software Process Advancement |
London, UK | ACRUMEN | (none*) | 150! |
(Aimed mainly at discussing and perfecting it, not so much teaching it) | |||||
2019 | NDC Oslo | Oslo, Norway | Mutants | video | 60 |
(My first delivery of this talk, not very good) | |||||
2019 | Nova Codecamp | Reston, VA, USA | ACRUMEN | video | 60 |
(Another one where they don't record so it was just my phone on a tripod) | |||||
2019 | Codecamp ChiČinÄu, by Codecamp Romania |
ChiČinÄu, Moldova | ACRUMEN | (none*) | |
2018 | Devconf Poland | Krakow, Poland | ACRUMEN | slides, video | 37 |
(My very first conference talk, so not very well done, sorry!) | |||||
2018 | assorted DC-area Meetups | Washington, DC, USA area | ACRUMEN | (none) | |
2018 | ElixirConf | Bellevue, WA, USA | ACRUMEN | video | 5 |
2018 | RubyNation | Arlington, VA, USA | ACRUMEN | slides | |
(as BACKUP speaker; didn't actually get to speak) | |||||
2017 | RubyConf | New Orleans, LA, USA | ACRUMEN | video | 5 |
2014 | assorted DC-area Meetups | Washington, DC, USA area | Ruby Gotchas | slides | ~45 |
1990s to Now |
Metro Washington Mensa's Regional Gathering |
Washington, DC, USA area | spam-protection, and non-tech topics |
(none) | 30-45 |
*These conferences donât record sessions, and I didnât either.
+These conferences recorded, but havenât yet released it.
Also, I was one of the co-organizers of TDDConf 2021, the very first international test-driven development conference, and appeared briefly on-screen to introduce speakers and fill time. I was also the sole organizer of Ruby DAYCamp (no website) 2013, a semi-impromptu âoverflowâ event for those who applied too late for Ruby DCamp (defunct, site gone).
Likely Near-Future Speaking Engagements
Likely engagements in the next couple years or so, mainly because I was chosen already but I had to decline for that year, had to withdraw from selection for some reason but found out the talk was going to be selected, or the conference was canceled or postponed, or various other such reasons, include:
Conference | Â | Where | Â | Topic(s) |
---|---|---|---|---|
Build Stuff | Â | Vilnius, Lithuania | Â | Mutants |
Code.Talks | Â | Hamburg, Germany | Â | Mutants |
CodeStock | Â | Knoxville, TN, USA | Â | Mutants |
DevConf South Africa | Â | various, South Africa | Â | Genetic Algos |
DevDays Europe | Â | Vilnius, Lithuania | Â | Mutants |
Devoxx Belgium | Â | Antwerp, Belgium | Â | Mutants and/or Genetic Algos |
Devoxx Poland | Â | Krakow, Poland | Â | Genetic Algos |
I T.A.K.E. | Â | Bucharest, Romania | Â | ACRUMEN |
WeAreDevelopers World Congress | Â | Berlin, Germany | Â | Mutants |