A Ruby Couple: Interview with James and Dana Gray

It's another week without a Questions Five Ways discussion, but I've got another great interview that more than makes up for it. James Gray (@JEG2) is very well known in the Ruby community. His wife, Dana, is less well known, but won't stay that way for long. Fresh from her Ruby presenting debut, a lightning talk on Ruby regular expressions at MWRC, the two of them are embarking on a joint training session at the Lone Star Ruby Conference.

I asked the two of them if they wouldn't mind doing a short interview with me, and am really happy that they agreed. Here's what we covered.

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Dana, if I understand correctly, you gave you first presentation at MWRC this spring. Now you're teaching a class with James. That's a pretty steep curve. Other than having a great team member, what's helped you navigate it?

Dana I think it goes without saying that James is an amazing mentor and a very gifted programmer and without his patience and enthusiasm, I certainly wouldn't be where I am now. But you asked aside from him, so...

Ironically, teaching comes naturally to me, especially in the tech world. Before I came to work with James, I was, among other things, the software trainer for sales reps at a big food company. I was responsible for not only developing the software system for managing their business relationships but for teaching them how to use it as well. So training at a tech conference where I get to teach people who already speak my language, well, that seems pretty much like having cake and getting to eat it too.

I think the other thing that has really helped me grow as a programmer is simply doing it every day, five days a week. If I don't work and learn every day, I don't pay the mortgage and that is a pretty strong motivator. This industry wakes up in a new world every other month or so and to survive you have to be willing to learn new stuff all the time. I'm just glad LSRC gives me the opportunity to share some of what I've learned with others.

James, you've been a member of the Ruby community for really long time, and you've done a lot for it. Which experiences stand out as things you want to pass along in your training?

James The Lone Star Ruby Conference trainings, which this will be my second year doing, are a neat opportunity for guys like me. I'm really just a pretty average programmer, but it turns out that I can teach a little. In fact, I use to teach chess for a living.

I have seriously looked at doing private trainings where I live in OKC, but that's a really big gamble. To get it going I would need to commit a lot of resources and then just pray that 20 or so people would be willing to fly out here for a few days and pay what I'm asking. Otherwise, I could take some pretty heavy losses. I haven't been brave enough to try that yet.

At the LSRC though, all I need to do is show up and teach. Plus with hundreds of programmers coming in, surely a handful will be interested in taking the class. It's easy for them too. LSRC, which I jokingly call The Foodie Conference, will even feed all of us. That makes it a great fit all around.

How did the two of you come up with the idea of putting on a training course together?

James I did a training at last year's conference with Gregory Brown called The Ins and Outs of Ruby I/O. It being our first big training, we did make a few mistakes. The main error was that we only asked for three hours since we were scared to commit to a full day. Then we planned about two days worth of content and didn't end up getting to everything. However, we had a terrific group attend. Even Matz dropped in and helped answer some questions. The end result was that it turned out pretty great, in my opinion.

This year Gregory and I both had good ideas for new trainings and we couldn't decide what we liked better. So we found more help and split into two teams. Gregory, with the help of Brad Ediger, will be doing a pair of trainings inspired by Ruby Best Practices (his new book). Dana and I joined forces to deliver the Moving to Ruby 1.9 Workshop.

We have all been waiting for Ruby 1.9 to be ready for the road for so long, I think some of us have actually missed the fact that it has happened. It officially has a production release, Rails runs there now, and we're definitely seeing people start to make the move. The time has come. It's a big jump though. A lot has changed. For example, I was able to write a series of eleven blog posts about just one of the big changes. The training gives us a great opportunity to dig into all the new stuff and show people both what you have to know and also just how you can use the new features to improve your Ruby. Hopefully that makes the training a good source of knowledge that a lot of us are looking for right about now.

Dana Last year at LSRC, I took James and Greg Brown's training and was excited to see how well it was received. It was pretty different from my previous training, where the sales reps I trained didn't really get a choice. Here were people who not only volunteered to take this class, they paid to do so. So when James said Greg was thinking about doing his own training, I volunteered to help James give his full day training. I was excited by the idea of being involved in the knowledge-share of Ruby's future. And it is a good opportunity for me to learn about Ruby 1.9, since I have to teach it. :) Besides, my experience as a trainer will help James stay on track. He tends to hot air balloon. :) I'll help develop and break down the material into digestible pieces and lots of hands on labs.

James She's right, I need the help.

That was probably the second mistake of last year's training: we built it too much as a huge brain dump from Gregory and myself. The attendees endured and even steered us a bit with their discussion, but it was definitely an endurance test for them. This year, Dana and I are planning a much more interactive environment that will be much better for relaxed learning.

What other joint Ruby activities do you foresee yourselves working on?

Dana Most likely more conferences and running the OK Ruby users group. Not to mention running our company, which keeps us plenty busy.

James That's a great question I'm not sure I know the answer to. Dana and I are best friends who really enjoy each other's company, in addition to being married. We are those rare people that can spend all day in each other's company and not get tired of ourselves. That makes us well suited to work together.

For now, we've been traveling to the Ruby conferences together, working on our speeches together, and obviously building applications together. Now we have this training to teach together. Who knows what we will find to try next.

Dana doesn't do as much open source work as I do, but I do have one project I keep hoping I'll be able to drag her into eventually. . .

There are a lot of under represented (or misrepresented) groups in the Ruby community (and other tech communities). The two of you seem to be doing really well. What are some of the keys to your success?

James My secret weapon is actually Dana.

I ran this business for many years on my own. It did OK. It took care of me and things gradually improved. However, when Dana came to work for me, almost exactly a year ago now, is when things really took off. We have all the work we can handle, we're working on some killer cutting edge projects, and we're making it to more conferences. I guess she's what my business was always missing!

Dana I think the biggest key to our success is simply us. James and I are very close. We work well together in just about everything we tackle, from buying a new car to running a business. We understand each other and we listen to each other. We are intimately aware of each others strengths and weaknesses and I think we are extraordinarily lucky that we compliment each other like that. We work with some great people out there, like the guys at Highgroove, which helps us focus on the things we like to do. And we stay away from anything that we feel is not a good fit for our goals. We work hard but try not to get too focused on work at the expense of anything else.

James We did make some good decisions when we built our programming business. My mother does accounting for small businesses and she really helped me out there. You would be surprised what a difference that makes. I see people around me frequently make classic mistakes she steered me away from right from the beginning. It's hard to be successful when you start off with big disadvantages. I think I could teach another class just on the right ways to build a small business.