BEWAREThe

SHINY!

Martha Rotter

Friday 16 March 12

Beware the Shiny!Martha Rotter@martharotter

martha@woop.ie

Friday 16 March 12

How many of you have said this in the last year:

(or month)(or week)

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I have really been meaning to get

in to LESS.

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Man, knowing node.js would be so useful!

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I totally need to pick up

some HAML.

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Just thinking of spending the

weekend learning to build Android

apps

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It’s time I finally figured out SASS, once and for all.

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Thinking I might try working

Knockout.js into my next project.

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I might spend the next day or two transferring all of my databases into CouchDB. Just to

try it out.

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Well, I know nothing about

Backbone. It’s time to become an expert. Today.

Oh, but first I just need to understand

Underscore.js. That shouldn’t take long...

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WHAT’S THE PROBLEM MARTHA?

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Some rights reserved by marcus_jb1973Friday 16 March 12

Some rights reserved by kk+

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Some rights reserved by Ryan HagemanFriday 16 March 12

Who would you hire?

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“‘Shiny’ is not a tangible metric.”Friday 16 March 12

Here’s another problem.

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Friday 16 March 12

Were you an expert in:

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I’m not trying to keep you from learning,

I promise

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Some rights reserved by La Citta VitaFriday 16 March 12

How to build sustainable skills?

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Lessons I’ve Learned from teaching web dev: • Know the difference between “taking a

look”, “learning”, and “mastering”

• Taking a look means understanding its purpose

• Learning means knowing how to use it

• Mastering means being able to handle it in complex situations

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An Example...

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Some rights reserved by j u s t i n . z

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Now is the time...

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STOP. HOLD UP.

NO HAMMER TIME.

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Ask yourself:

• What’s the deadline for this project?

• Do I have a spare day or two (or three or four) to try this out during the project? (If not why are you considering jeopardizing the project’s deadline?)

• Is this specific to this project or will I use this technology again in some or many future projects?

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Evaluate

• If the answers to the questions lead you to believe a) there is time, b) it won’t add to the client’s costs, and c) you can still complete it on time, go for it.

• If not, all is not lost. Find a weekend or evening where you can work on it on a personal project. Do NOT just do how-to tutorials! Have an actual project!

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Back to our example...

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This could go one of two ways.

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the way we imagine it will go when we decide

to add on a fun new framework:

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Friday 16 March 12

and the way it sometimes works when you try working with old, broken tutorials and

discover the method you need has had a bug filed on it for 8 months with no activity and

no one is answering you on IRC.

You wake up at 4pm on a Thursday afternoon on the floor in your hallway after working straight through since Monday, and you realize you need to start from scratch

to finish by 5pm tomorrow. Friday 16 March 12

Some rights reserved by David Boyle

Friday 16 March 12

Let’s not do that, mkay?

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Best Practices for the Shiny

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When you start learning something new, have a

project in mind

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Remember shiny things change often.

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Beware outdated help documentation, tutorials &

blog posts

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When looking at something new, think about how you

might use it

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Build on top of what you already know. Create a

foundation.

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Find a partner in crime.

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Find the hideouts!

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Ask questions.(And don’t do the “This might

sound really stupid but...”)

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Don’t try to learn it all at once.

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Don’t be afraid to invest in yourself.

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Pay attention to the world around you.

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Remember: there’s nothing wrong with shiny.

It’s what you build with it that counts!

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Thanks!

Friday 16 March 12