# Why We Should Listen to Lightning Talks - Starting with RailsConf 2021

# What is a Lightning Talk?

Stealing this from Wikipedia:

> Lightning talks are designed to be short presentations between five and ten minutes long, but are usually capped at five minutes.

Lightning talks usually accept sign-ups **after the conference has started**, so they can't be found in the conference schedule. Even if the recordings have been uploaded, this is what you'll usually see when trying to find out about them:

![image.png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1628824393371/a6pjNh2qC.png)

Eh! Super hard to know what they're actually talking about. Still, I'd recommend you to watch them!

## Why should I care about lightning talks?

They're short! If you're spending hours on YouTube already, please just give it 5 more minutes.

Lightning talks compress months and years of knowledge into less than 5 minutes. Super time-efficient way to learn or hear about something new.

You'll definitely like it because you like reading on Hashnode and you clicked on this article! 😆

Since they're so short and packed with content, it's never boring!

# Lightning Talks from RailsConf 2021

To get things rolling, let's start by looking at the Lightning Talks from [RailsConf](https://railsconf.org/) 2021.

  - [Should You Create a New Rails App as API-Only? - Steffani Brasil](#should-you-create-a-new-rails-app-as-api-only-steffani-brasil)
  - [Programming logbooks - Robson Port](#programming-logbooks-robson-port)
  - [Pair Programming as a Mentorship - Emily Harber](#pair-programming-as-a-mentorship-emily-harber)
  - [Isolate Packages with Packwerk - Dorian Marie](#isolate-packages-with-packwerkhttpsgithubcomshopifypackwerk-dorian-marie)
  - [Inertia.js - Brandon Shar](#inertiajshttpsinertiajscom-brandon-shar)
  - [Renewables + Rails - Sarah Sausan](#renewables-rails-sarah-sausan)
  - [My Team's Recent Gitastrophy - Lauren Billington](#my-teams-recent-gitastrophy-lauren-billington)

## Should You Create a New Rails App as API-Only? - Steffani Brasil

#### When should I choose Rails API?

- Does your client (SPA, mobile native app, etc) render all HTML pages?
- Does your client create all user interfaces
- Does Rails API only need to serve JSON responses to your client

If the above questions end with a yes ⇒ Rails API was built for this!

It's also possible to turn it back into a full-fledge Rails project, so don't need to worry about it!

Talk slides and cheatsheet: [https://www.stefannibrasil.me/railsconf/](https://www.stefannibrasil.me/railsconf/)

%[https://youtu.be/H8JYqk1_zBY]

## Programming logbooks - Robson Port

### What is a logbook?

A personal and professional reference, mainly used by engineers, about everything related to a project

### Why is it useful?

- Divide and conquer: breaking big problems down so it's easier to fix
- Reduces context switching: stuff you need already written down
- Creates an audit trail

### What to write in it?

- Write down the initial problems
- Describe
- Write down discoveries or how it was resolved

### Example

![image.png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1628824875708/9PnNNaq2o.png)

- App used: [JoplinApp](https://joplinapp.org/) (Open source note taking app)
- What to write:
    - Link to ticket
    - Engineering detail

### My thoughts

- Why not just Jira tickets / or any ticketing system?

    Might have other roles other than developers looking at it, so the logs might be a bit too much for them.

- Maybe we could use Slack as a logbook?

%[https://youtu.be/Naf9FByIZ2U]

## Pair Programming as a Mentorship - Emily Harber

### About Emily

- Early Career Developer at Shopify
- Self-taught
- Started to experience pair-programming at bootcamps
- 3 months after graduating, Emily went into Shopify

### How can pair programming help?

- Build confidence
- Practice skills
- Share knowledge real-time
- Everyone knows something you don't know yet

### My thoughts

- It's also a good practice for interviewing!

%[https://youtu.be/jeFXFom1fHo]

## Isolate Packages with [Packwerk](https://github.com/Shopify/packwerk) - Dorian Marie

### What is Packwerk?

A Shopify project that enforces boundaries and modularizes Rails applications.

Check the one-minute demo out: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwqlyBAxVpQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwqlyBAxVpQ&feature=youtu.be)

%[https://youtu.be/Hiw4lJChDz0]

## [Inertia.js](https://inertiajs.com/) - Brandon Shar

If you want a Rails back end and a React / Vue / Svelte front end?

Get started with Inertia.js here: [https://youtu.be/03EjkPaCHEI](https://youtu.be/03EjkPaCHEI)

### My thoughts

If you've been a past user of Django, Laravel, or Rails, definitely take a look at the project!

%[https://youtu.be/j2sch-hCBUA]

## Renewables + Rails - Sarah Sausan

### Sarah's Story

- A story on how she fell in love with Ruby & Rails
    - Ruby is super fun
    - To make something useful, we don't need to know *everything* about it
    - An opportunity to attend RailsConf
- Geologist caring about Geothermal topics
- Wanted to make data available to the public by using Rails

%[https://youtu.be/UU5vYp26D6A]

## My Team's Recent Gitastrophy - Lauren Billington

- Rebasing vs merge
- `git pull` vs `git merge`
- Story on recovering from breaking production with rebasing and `git pull`

### My thoughts

We all might have encountered this before, but sharing it in a lightning talk let us all know we've been in the same shoes once.

%[https://youtu.be/UMH8eU3Ubdw]

That's all for now and we've taken a look at 7 wonderful topics related to software development. Isn't that fast? You can find all of the talks from RailsConf in this [playlist](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbHJudTY1K0c8N1-PPyiQxlHNzJIzyJv6).

Last but not least, for those who are curious about "Is Ruby Dead", you'll find the answer at [https://isrubydead.com/](https://isrubydead.com/).

Love to know your thoughts about lightning talks as well! Please leave them in the comments!