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People Call Me Aaron

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Re: People Call Me Aaron

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the way you responded and described your experience, I think the term I should've included, at least from an academic basis, is that of "code switching" because it's a pretty interesting concept to me. The big key was the 'work' versus 'home' concept of self. It's totally reasonable to want to compartmentalize, I think it's pretty ingrained in our species, so talking about it as a fact of life is pretty useful.

Ah, ok, so there is a term for it! It's also something that's been much remarked-upon by various minority groups. I've heard a lot of African-American comedians, friends, and commentators mention how they have feel the need "act white" when they're not around other black people. You hear the exact same thing from LGBT folks as well - they often choose to "act straight" by default in a lot of environments. I've seen t…

Yep! You really did summarize a great deal of the concept, and particularly well with the groups which seem to have the most frequent need (desire?) to utilize code switching. I've got several different modes based on personal or professional situations (definitely privilege), and I think it really started to click as a 'tool' about the time I got fluent in French language and culture. Very eye opening, and has been useful when getting to know and be collegiate with folks from minority or disenfranchised backgrounds.

Re: People Call Me Aaron

#113
post #103
post #96

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What counts as a 'tech scene', out of interest? I'm based in London, and don't really have any friends that are programmers, or really see much going on. Somewhere I can get involved?

Search on meetup.com for a topic you are interested in, there are loads of tech meetups in London (usually with beer and food provided) and it's easy to get chatting to people so I wouldn't worry if you are going to one on your own. A couple I would recommend are the React meet up, usually held at Facebook's office, and Functional Programming for the Web, both run by an agency (I think?) called Red Badger - but obvio…

Thanks, I will have a look. Mostly Go and Python at the moment, so I'm sure there are some decent meetups in London somewhere. I'm Clapham based.

Have you got any experience in London with meetups for people looking for work? I will need to hire at least 2 more devs this year for my startup and have no clue where to start. Certainly don't want to use a recruiter...

Re: People Call Me Aaron

#114
post #107
post #106

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In Leeds there are plenty of meet ups and events going on, there is very much a 'scene' - you just have to involve yourself in it if you wish to. London is bound to have plenty going on.

Could you provide more details about the Leeds scene please? I've been working here for a few months as a programmer and am interested in getting involved.

The best places to look are on Meetup and Eventbrite, there are groups that meet fairly regularly for most languages/technologies. Such as Leeds Ruby Thing - https://twitter.com/leedsrubything , Leeds DevOps -http://www.leedsdevops.org.uk, Leeds JS - http://www.meetup.com/LeedsJS, and there are many others, even one dedicated to AWS I think.

Sky have recently started big investment in the area, as you're probably aware, and do a Tech Event most months with various guest speakers, the next one of those is focusing on JS if that's your thing - https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/leedstechhub-javascript-ticke...

There's a Code Dojo - http://www.meetup.com/Leeds-Code-Dojo

There is also a Hack Space if that interests you - https://leedshackspace.org.uk

An annual Hack Day takes place, but that's usually later on in the year - http://leedshack.org - but other hack days have appeared at other times during the year (they tend to be corporate sponsored ones but if you get past the recruitment element of them, they can be fun.)

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