What follows is a conversation I had with a developer and entrepreneur named Johnny who sparked the initial ideas for Ruby Mendicant University. 

He was originally looking for personal mentorship, something I've historically done for free as a volunteer effort but these days have to charge for or downright decline due to a lack of available time.  Fortunately, as I continued my conversation with him, I realized that there might be a way that I could go back to my roots.   The idea for RMU was born in an instant, and Johnny's initial questions helped me form some basic ideas about my overall goals for the program.

Since he was kind enough to let me share this in public, you can now get a sense of what my vision of RMU is, and what sorts of students I'm looking for.  If it sounds promising, you can apply to take the entrance exam, or help me cover the costs of initial content creation.

But for now, let's get on with Johnny's questions.

On 6/3/10 12:38 PM, Johnny wrote:

> Some questions:
> > 1. Are the sessions "solid" blocks of time? How long? What does it look
> like through the eyes of a student?

I think what it will be is something in which people would be expected
to spend a good deal of time on independent learning (this lets them get
out of the program what they want). But then a couple days a week,
there would be interactive sessions, some structured, others
unstructured in nature.

I'm thinking basically two event nights per a week + one unstructured QA
session where I'm sitting in a channel waiting for people to drop by, or
watching a mailing list.  This would be continued across roughly a three week period.

> 2. Lets talk niches.
> > a. Heavy Duty. There are several rails shops and similar organizations
> that'll help people coming from other languages learn Ruby over a
> multi-day session. Lay $500-$1500 on the table and get group time with
> famous Rubyists + cookies.

Yes, active, intense learning is a market that was at one point
saturated at at least at this point abundant. I have taught some of
these sessions and I think they're awesome (Doing one in Chicago in a
few weeks, as I mention in the post). But they are not for the faint
of heart, and usually not accessible to hobbyists due to their cost and
travel requirements.

> b. Light Weight. Buy books, download PDFs, read the ruby and rails
> source docs, find that your install is different even if you purchase a
> brand new mac so even if you read it you won't get the reward, read
> forum posts to fix it, try stackoverflow, beg in IRC, attend Ruby groups
> but realize that they are for developers more than help sessions and you
> don't want to hijack it.

Yep, sooner or later, this gets frustrating as hell, and these folks
tend to become permanent newbs hating their job OR disappear entirely.
Sad situation.

Some people make it to the far side of this and come to understand just
how much work documentation and helping others is. It's a shame that
more don't fill in the cracks here.

> c. Mid-Strength. Underwear + ??? = Ruby Knowledge. Meaning, there's
> bloody nothing in the middle range. I'm thrilled to run through sets of
> learning instructions if I can get a human on the other side when the
> thing I need is simple but it'll take me the rest of the day to figure
> out that there's a gem list, or that I can hit cmd + r to run my script
> right from TextMate, or that TextMate EXISTS!
> > Do you agree that there's little in the way of mid-strength tutorial
> solutions and that there's a need here? If so, can you hit this sweet spot?

That's definitely the market I'm aiming for. There are a lot of people
who have gone through the initial gauntlet only to plateau and find that
while they can play by ear, they can't quite read the music.

I want to help motivated people find the resources they need to be
productive people who can work on interesting problems :)

> 3. Demand. Yes there are waves of Ruby newbies running around and
> banging into walls. Will they pay in large numbers for the help you want
> to give? How often do people like me pitch you on getting mentored?
> After 2 minutes of thought....I dunno. I will, but I'm probably weird.

Not weird at all. I get a request for mentorship at least once a month,
sometimes more frequently than that. I have had some long term
relations with people, others stuck around for a bit and then either
dropped out or went on to accomplish great things.

But now that I have a wife and a house, my available free time has
dwindled and I don't generally accept mentorship requests unless they
can pay my going consulting rate. Unfortunate, really, because my
mentor (James Edward Gray II) gave me tons of his time for free. But I
imagine that those were different times for JEG2 as well, as it was over
6 years ago.

So I'm hoping that with this class, I can create a program that
streamlines my ability to help people out, helps defray some of my
costs, and adds a bit of structure to the thing so I can fit it into my
life. If it works out, students will be able to participate for free or
very cheap, and I can get back on the mentoring horse.

Of all the things I've done in my life, helping people learn has been
the most satisfying.