After the Meeting
From Deobald
* After the meeting, it was decided we would all go out for a pint. Lagging behind, I ended up on the street with a chap who'd been talking the ear off of anyone who would listen the entire night. As we wandered around looking for the pub, the conversation became increasingly uncomfortable.
He repeatedly told me of a huge stockpile of real estate data he claimed to own, which he wanted to turn into money using Ruby. At first he didn't sound completely insane, so I indulged his yammering about fantasy startup companies which consisted of the following business plan: Data mine -> Ruby -> Web -> Profit. However, when he asked me where I thought Ruby was going in the next 3 years that the conversation took a turn for the worse.
"Oh, I don't know. Microsoft and Sun, probably," I joked. He appeared interested. Or confused. But whatever -- we'd just come from a Ruby Brigade meeting so he must know something, right? I was strangely uncomfortable with this guy, so when he asked what I meant, I continued if only to prevent him from talking. "Well, Microsoft is actually behind Ruby.NET and Sun just hired the JRuby guys. Chances are, commercial support will mean better performance and ratification of standards, which should accelerate adoption. As they change their platforms to support dynamic languages in a sensible way, you won't see the problems with more complex constructs, like continuations, that you do now." I take a leap of faith and dip my toe into the technical tangent pond: "Right now the Ruby.NET guys have solved that problem on the .NET Framework by synthesizing continuations with exceptions. Yuck."
I receive a blank stare in response.
"Have you ever used continuations before?" I ask, assuming he's at least fired up an irb session once in his life. "I read about exceptions once... but I don't really know a whole lot of... that stuff."
Whoa. Okay. I was off a bit. What was this guy doing at a Ruby user's group? I was about to find out.
Obviously uncomfortable with stunted developer lexicon, he proceeded to spew unfiltered thoughts about anything he knew even remotely related to computers. "I tried using LDAP for a while. It seemed like a pretty cool technology at the time, and I think it might have another chance..." What the fuck? Just... keep that internal monologue internal, Steve. He's been talking for over an hour now. I'm sure he'll wear himself out soon, like a restless kitten. "...yeah... files these days are almost all binary. But I remember back when they were all ASCII. What do you think Ruby is going to do to change that? It seems like everything is ASCII in Ruby." At this point, I'm actually laughing under my breath. Where the hell is that pub? I just need a beer and a chair beside anyone but this escapee.
I rattle off a quick text to Jeremy: "save me".
The conversation turns to his girlfriend. "She's been telling me to buy into real estate lately. I have a lot of money-" Oh, snap! This guy is loaded! I'm surprised the John Deere hat and stained parka didn't tip me off earlier. "...but I'm not sure what I want to invest in. Gotta buy fast though. And soon. Time is running out. All the good deals are running out." Again with the real estate? Not the smoothest segue ever, but probably the best he's ever come up with. "So, you're in town on business?" "Uh, yeah." I'm pretty sure that's been established at this point. "Where you workin'?" I put on my blue hat and respond with "A client." I think he knows more than enough already. My name, for one.
"So, you're staying with a friend in town, or...?"
"At a hotel downtown."
"Oh yeah? What hotel?" Bingo. You might want to suppress the excitement in your voice next time, dude. It's a dead give-away. At this moment, a really twisted part of me is tempted to verbalize this advice, but I figure he'll figure it out sooner or later. Practice makes perfect.
"A hotel downtown," I snap. "Look, I think I'm going to bail on the pub. You should probably call your girlfriend if you're not going to keep looking for it. See you later."
Neat. He's following me. "I'm sure it must be around here somewhere. Let's ask this bouncer." "Let's ask this couple." "Let's ask this cab driver." "Let's ask these men." This guy sure wants to get to that pub all of a sudden.
A few blocks later I turn to him. "Look. I'm leaving. You should call your girlfriend." He pretends to dial, pretends to have a conversation, and pretends to walk in the direction of "her" apartment. So long, freak! Thanks for the story.
Not a minute later Jeremy is calling my name from a side street. He directs me to the pub where I enjoy a plate of nachos and a beer while I recount the tale. I love happy endings. I love nachos. I love beer.
