Interview with Charley Baker

• UGtastic Archive
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The Interviewer

Mike Hall

Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic

The Guest

Charley Baker

Ruby Community Leader, Lead Maintainer of Watir

The Conversation

Mike Hall Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
Hi, I'm Mike. I'm sitting down with Charley Baker from Denver. He's been involved with a lot of the groups out in that area and he's also heavily involved in open source software. You're maintaining Watir and things like that. Can you tell us a little bit about what you've been doing out in Denver with the different groups and what you've been observing out there?
Charley Baker Ruby Community Leader, Lead Maintainer of Watir
Sure, absolutely. I moved out to Denver about six years ago from the San Francisco Bay Area. When I came out to Denver, I noticed there were a lot of disparate groups—splintered factions that didn't actually talk to each other very much. There are Java user groups, .NET user groups, and two Ruby user groups (one in Denver, one in Boulder). There's not a lot of interaction, so there's not a good sense of the software craftsmanship or software community as a whole in that area. One of the things in building out an office for Obtiva (now Groupon) is that you need a sense of community to draw from so that people know what's happening.
Mike Hall Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
Are you going to different user groups and talking to their leadership to see what's working?
Charley Baker Ruby Community Leader, Lead Maintainer of Watir
Right now we're getting a sense of each group's flavor. We've talked about getting the heads of those groups together to discuss things like scheduling. If you're doing Ruby but also interested in iOS, you want to make sure those dates don't collide. When we did Rocky Mountain Ruby a few months ago, we pulled people from the iOS and Java communities to let them know these resources are available.
Mike Hall Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
So it's about reducing friction for crossover interests—like a Ruby dev who uses an iPhone and wants to check out the iOS group?
Charley Baker Ruby Community Leader, Lead Maintainer of Watir
Exactly. I find a lot of crossover, particularly between Ruby and iOS development. Just being aware those groups are out there is key. There are also larger scale groups like Agile Denver that sit outside specific technical stacks.
Mike Hall Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
I've talked to people today who were looking at the Ruby community as a model for what they want to see in the .NET or Java space. Is the situation in those other groups as dire as they think, or is it just a difference in community builders?
Charley Baker Ruby Community Leader, Lead Maintainer of Watir
That's a great question. In the Ruby community, we've been fortunate to have strong community builders. .NET and Java communities sometimes suffer from a lack of that focus. I think it makes sense for the organizers of all these groups to talk together at a meta-level.
Mike Hall Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
What would you recommend to someone running a user group who wants to become a better citizen of their local community?
Charley Baker Ruby Community Leader, Lead Maintainer of Watir
Just attending another group is a great first step. Find out what's happening. The people running these groups are your community leaders. If you get those people together, you create a broader pool of common experiences without having walls between the communities.
Mike Hall Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
It would be nice if the Ruby meeting and the Vim meeting weren't on the same night.
Charley Baker Ruby Community Leader, Lead Maintainer of Watir
Exactly. Honestly, I don't see people attending multiple groups as frequently as you'd think, which is surprising. People often feel stuck in their various silos. One of the least 'walled' crossovers is Ruby, iOS, and JavaScript. But I find Microsoft development can be particularly tough because people end up very caught in that specific community and don't get outside of it.
Mike Hall Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
So the recommendation is for leaders to collaborate rather than compete?
Charley Baker Ruby Community Leader, Lead Maintainer of Watir
Yes. There's a dearth of software engineers and it's hard to find people. Collaborating on a broad community makes it much easier to solve the types of problems that affect all of us.
Mike Hall Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
Great. Well, thank you very much, Charley, for sitting down with me.
Charley Baker Ruby Community Leader, Lead Maintainer of Watir
Thanks, buddy. Appreciate it.

Critical Insights

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"The 'Splintered Faction' problem: Local tech scenes often suffer from a lack of cross-pollination between language silos (Java, .NET, Ruby), leading to redundant efforts and fragmented community identity."
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"Community building is a critical prerequisite for technical recruitment; establishing a vibrant local ecosystem is more effective for staffing than isolated hiring efforts."
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"The most effective way to broaden a technical community is to establish a 'Meta-Group' of leaders from disparate stacks to coordinate scheduling and events, reducing friction for members with crossover interests."
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"Ruby, iOS, and JavaScript represent an early 'natural crossover' ecosystem with lower cultural walls compared to more traditional, vendor-locked stacks like .NET."
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"Technical 'walls' are often self-imposed by practitioners; the most resilient developers are those who explicitly seek out meetings and groups outside their primary day-job language."