Bearded captains set the sails for today's computer goodness I submitted this talk to arrcamp.be A Ruby, Rails and Web conference in Ghent (BE) on October 3-4th
In the good ol' times, when Computer Science was young and open like the ocean, brave captains were more mathematicians than developers. Also, they had great beards.
They opened routes, fought monsters, discovered unknown lands, and we had fun on this ever since. As time goes by, we seem to forget some of their warnings and wisdom.
It's time to roll the treasure map and find the buried chests of pure gold advice!
We stand on the shoulders of giants, and what we use everyday depends on the foundations laid decades ago by people who were more mathematicians or linguists than developers in the modern sense.
Ruby and Rails gathered a fresh, young, driven audience and stellar, self-taught developers. I feel lucky to have had great teachers and some part of my education about classic academic parts, which I realized 5 years later saved me from many pitfalls.
When some people discover (or often, re-discover) bold new paths, it's useful to be able to draw from the Bearded Gurus' experience. This talk will bring back some obvious advice from what looks like ages ago in our fast-changing industry. It may even make you look at old academic papers, which may sound unusual, but is a very enlightening experiment.