The last few days I’ve been seeing a few references to “Mad Libs”. Confused, I quickly punched the term into Google and discovered that it was a reference to something we’ve all done at school, filling in the blanks in a sentence. My google reader(this and this) shared the fact HuffDuffer started using a Mad Libs style form as their sign up form. The question was raised by a few people as to whether this was good design.

Luke Wroblewski (in collaboration with Vast.com) did some research and came up with astounding results that the conversion ratio rose some 25-40% when a Mad Libs style form was used. That’s an impressive, but meaningless number. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy that HuffDuffer has found something that works for them. But lets step back for a second and analyse why the results that Vast.com got might be this way.

Here’s a thought; maybe it’s just because its a completely novel approach to a signup form. But can you really see this becoming the standard way to do signup forms? How long do you think it will be before this becomes more annoying than amusing? So quit jibber jabbering about how good it is and take a look at the long term picture. Mad Libs style forms are not something you can take and apply elsewhere with guaranteed results.

To be fair, I’m biased against filling in the blanks. I hated the premise at school and I will probably continue to hate the practice until it, or I, ceases to exist.

I accept planetmcd’s criticism of my previous post. I’m aware that I’m less than eloquent and my arguments less than logical at times.

I can’t say for sure whether anyone has ever done a presentation like that here. I do know that something like that wouldn’t be accepted not just because of the images (sexual or not), but because it doesn’t conform to corporate standards. Ruby/Rails/Web2.0 has no such standards, more,  the culture is one of being risky, on the edge, and of pushing the limits.

There are probably many ways that it could have been done better, but it wasn’t. The problem stems from not going to Matt, and expressing that they didn’t like the presentation. They could have suggested using ‘Fragstar’ next time (via Renae Bair). Instead choosing to drag Rails through the mud publicly, “Here is a professional community that doesn’t respect women”.

I’m aware that Matt has defend his position, and the DHH may have made it worse, but I don’t condone the method this was approached in the first place. It’s sensationalist and unnecessary. Do people actually think they’ve improved the community by acting in this manner?

The dress code is only one facet of what I was trying (albeit poorly) to express. If you asked a programmer whether he would prefer to wear jeans and t-shirt or suit and tie to work which would he pick? What is the dress code at the Web2.0 development houses (not having worked at one I don’t know)? If it is jeans and t-shirts then that workplace is different to mine. My current employers wouldn’t consider them very professional either – This is where it goes to the heart of the community. You can do development the traditional, non agile way, any time you want to put on a suit and tie and forget you know techniques like metaprogramming/bdd/tdd (and don’t forget how to use windows, because that’s what corporate professionals use).

I have worked for a few industrial clients where staff had nudes as desktop wallpapers (we’re not talking partial nudity either), and pinups scattered around the sheds. There were certainly females around, though how they felt about it never came up. They would consider themselves professional, in that they provide top notch solutions to their clients. Warranties & quality assurance, etc. I doubt my current employer would find them very professional either, sweaty, greasy, and not very formal.

One of the things that I’ve heard raised when Australian corporate entities deal with overseas counterparts, is that we’re a good deal less formal and respectful than they are. Socially and culturally Australians are more laid back, some might say unprofessional. Different people are always going to have differing opinions on professionalism, I find it unlikely that Matt felt he was being unprofessional in using the pictures and analogy that he did. I would hazard he still doesn’t feel he was unprofessional, though he undoubtedly realizes that it was a mistake.

Before I launch into my response to Peter Szinek, you need to know some background. Matt Aimonetti made a presentation at GoGaRuCa on CouchDB, which included sexual references and supposedly explicit images. I’ve looked over the presentation (which may or may not have the same content as the one at the event) and I have to say that I found it to be pretty tame considering the hype that had spread before it. When I first read the story (found here and here) it was framed in ‘how to scare women away from your development community’. DHH and probably many others, responded strongly to the controversy. I’m particularly fond of Renae Bair’s post.

This morning when I got to work I was greeted by another story…about how rails is still a ghetto.  I have to disagree with the argument. Yes if you go to India and go to a Hindu temple you should take off your shoes, and you should be refined enough to KNOW to take off your shoes, either that or the shoes at the door should give you the heads up. This line of reasoning isn’t relevant for a rails conference, because there is no guideline anywhere that says, ‘should not show pictures of that nature’. It may well have been a bad decision, but there without precedent, how was he to know.

This is where the argument that professionalism comes in. I certainly wouldn’t dare using a presentation like that at my work, because they’re card holding accountants and lawyers. The development community (in particular web 2.0) has a reputation for riding on the edge, this is not just rails (which has been pointed out by others), but many other frameworks/languages that consider themselves groundbreaking. Clearly there is a disconnect here, between being passionate and fun, and relaxing from corporate strictures. Professionalism should have had everybody there wearing a suit and tie, but I would bet they weren’t.

There has been plenty of coverage about this less than newsworthy event, so I’ll not waste any more time on it. Another couple of days, and it will have disappeared from reddit, digg, etc & and will be forgotten. The majority of people that use Rails don’t care about posturing and hype that people are putting so much effort into…that’s just a way of big noting blogs and looking important. Rails isn’t a ghetto, if anything it’s a train station, with a lot of people getting on and going places and a few people that feel the need to hang around and cause trouble. I’m not saying you don’t have a right to dislike his presentation, but don’t include the rest of us. Don’t pretend like he did something wrong just because you don’t like it. If you don’t like the way he did the presentation put together a better presentation and you be the one standing on stage.

On that note I’m going back to work.