Anglebracket: Mike Hall Interviews Pat Paasch
Join Pat Paasch and Clark Sell as they discuss the formation of the Ankle Bracket user group and their first meeting, which focused on front-end web development. The group aims to provide hands-on learning experiences and build a repository of assets for future reference. #usergroup #webdevelopment #learning #collaboration #anglebracket
The Interviewer
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
The Guest
Pat Paasch, Clark Sell
angleBracket
The Conversation
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Hi, I'm Mike. I'm sitting down with Clark and Pat. This is Pat, this is Clark, from Ankle Bracket. Ankle Bracket is a user group up here in the northwest suburbs, and actually we just came back from a meeting. So, Pat, Clark, can you tell me a little bit about Ankle Bracket and what you guys are doing?
Pat Paasch, Clark Sell
angleBracket
Hello, Pat. Ankle Bracket is for you guys and gals, I guess, that was why we all are hacking some code.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Speak up?
Pat Paasch, Clark Sell
angleBracket
Yes.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Is it not loud enough?
Pat Paasch, Clark Sell
angleBracket
Speaking up, we're in a bar and this is what we do after Ankle Bracket.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
So, what is Ankle Bracket? What did we just do today?
Pat Paasch, Clark Sell
angleBracket
So, we've tried to form together a number of web developers like yourself to come and meet once a month and take a topic and just code it. Somewhat unstructured/structured, so I haven't talked about web sockets. We kind of kicked it off by talking about it, formed up into pairs, pop, different lines. We just started coding and then kind of revisited back to the end. Some people switched around and kind of switched around a little bit.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Pat Paasch, Clark Sell
angleBracket
Might kind of bounce around with new groups. But this is kind of the hands-on of user groups. Unlike most autistic interviews, I actually participated in the user group today and I'd say one of the things I liked was that we had a topic and then it was kind of like, some people worked on Donet stuff, some people worked on Jasmine and Node, some people, while I was working on Pusher with Ruby. It's all front-end web stuff, no balance around other than front-end web stuff.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
So, how long have you been doing in the back of business? Is this the same or the third year?
Pat Paasch, Clark Sell
angleBracket
About three hours. Yeah, yeah.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
So this was the first meeting?
Pat Paasch, Clark Sell
angleBracket
This was the first meeting.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Okay. Yeah. So, what did you guys learn?
Pat Paasch, Clark Sell
angleBracket
I know you've been involved quite a bit with the user group community in Chicago. You still are a depth evangelist. I'd like to talk about that.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Pat Paasch, Clark Sell
angleBracket
So, you know, obviously you were able to bring a lot of what you've experienced going through so many groups.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Why this? Yeah, why this? Why did you decide on this form?
Pat Paasch, Clark Sell
angleBracket
Get away from the user group experience. Yeah, I mean, something different.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah. I think we said it in this kind of slide before, right?
Pat Paasch, Clark Sell
angleBracket
We all sit at home and coat. We all learn. And that's usually by ourselves.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Pat Paasch, Clark Sell
angleBracket
I work alone a lot of times. I work alone a lot of times. I think getting experiences from different people on how they perceive something or do something or use it differently or ask them a question, only further advances what you learn.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
So, getting hands-on and being able to be with my friends, I think is even better, right? Yeah.
Pat Paasch, Clark Sell
angleBracket
And that's what tonight was about. Hopefully, as time goes on, the source repository that we're all hopefully forking and pulling back into, we can grow a set of assets that, you know, when you walk away and you say, "Oh, well, we were doing this WebSocket thing.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
I forgot, right?
Pat Paasch, Clark Sell
angleBracket
I haven't been using it for a month or two, so it's kind of falling out of my brain. " But I know, hey, I can go to angle bracket on GitHub and I can just go grab that, and I should be able to refresh myself from where I was at. And oh, by the way, pep did this thing in WebSocket. Oh, that looked really cool. Mark did this thing and then did that thing. Maybe I'll look across all three of them somehow.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
So, that's kind of the point of it, right?
Pat Paasch, Clark Sell
angleBracket
So, kind of you want to build up a body of knowledge. You want to use these groups more to help, not just learn together, but also build something that people can go back and use to get them to be cool. I think one of the pettiest events is you want to be selfish. But the point is that being selfish is what you want to learn at the music. So, if you want to learn something, you can take that to the meeting and say, "I want to learn this," and find someone else who wants to learn it, too.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
And we went around and asked, "What do you want to get out tonight?
Pat Paasch, Clark Sell
angleBracket
This is your two hours that you spend away with your kids or your whatever. " And then you should walk away with something that you want to learn and find something that has similar interests to you. And, you know, like even with the Pusher, for me, it's something I'm working on a side project and it's a low priority for me.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Normally, when I sit down and think, "What do I have to do on this project? " Being able to sit down for this two hours and be like, "Well, what seconds is it, Dean?
Pat Paasch, Clark Sell
angleBracket
Let's dig up from the back in the back lawn and bring it up. " It's not an excuse to do that. So, that was a lot of fun. And someone might have experience with Pusher next time we go there.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
At least, probably someone that makes that experience with something else, right? Yeah.
Pat Paasch, Clark Sell
angleBracket
Like I know for you.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
I mean, do you want to struggle on that alone? Yeah.
Pat Paasch, Clark Sell
angleBracket
I'm going to think of that.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Pat Paasch, Clark Sell
angleBracket
Be able to struggle some other time.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Pat Paasch, Clark Sell
angleBracket
I mean, we had guys with Pusher, Jasmine, Node, SignalR, . NET, Ruby. I tried to get Node expected running, failing miserably.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Pat Paasch, Clark Sell
angleBracket
We had 15 people maybe, 10 people.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Pat Paasch, Clark Sell
angleBracket
That's a pretty broad breadth of technology.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Pat Paasch, Clark Sell
angleBracket
I was impressed. Level of participation was pretty amazing. Well, it looks like you're off to an auspicious start. So, anyway, thanks Clark, thanks Pat. Talk to you guys later. I was impressed. The level of participation was pretty good. Well, it looks like you're off to an auspicious start. So anyway, thanks Clark, thanks Pat. Talk to you guys later.