ATLRUG

In an effort to network with computer people (like myself), I went to another of these computer meetings on Saturday. Every month, ATLRUG meets up for a programming session lasting around 5-6 hours. This event is planned out a little differently from the ones I have been to till now. Typically, all the members are divided into groups and work on a programming task/topic and produce actual working code. You either work on 1 main topic, or a bunch of topics. Everyone works in only Ruby, btw. Sometimes (or so I have heard) there are presentations too. Sounds cool! Yesterday, it wasn't just Ruby, it was ( oh yeah you guessed it ) Ruby On Rails! Everywhere I go, someone is talking about RoR. We were all "assigned" to work on a wiki web application.
Designing and programming in a group environment is so different from a solo project. Pros and cons for both styles of development. One of the definite advantages of working in a (small) group is combining everyone's ideas and effort into one big result. I was introduced to this style of programming @ Emory in one of my grad classes. I know I felt relieved that I wouldn't have to program all of it myself, but hey it's one way of learning something new!
On a side note, Atlanta is a small world: I ran into an ALE guy at this meeting, who is also a regular at the Python and Perl meetings! I just may check those out!