I asked @Garrett for some questions to spark up the talksurf forum:
How the hell does Justin have so much time that he can spend on creating a
surfing forum?
I love using discourse.org sites for Ruby programming. In fact, I wrote about this a year ago at my Rails on Maui blog: Getting Started With Discourse. Here’s a short list of why this is unbelievably cool:
- It’s a Rails/EmberJs open source application.
- It was founded by Jeff Atwood with Sam Saffron and Robin Ward. Jeff created StackOverflow. Programmers love that site!
- I’ve been loving two awesome Ruby programming forums run on Discourse: The Ruby Rogues Parley Forum and Thoughtbot’s Learn Forum.
Basically Discourse rocks for us programmers. So what else?
- My other passion, besides writing software, is doing sports in the warm waters of Hawaii, usually Maui.
- I love to write articles helping others, as well as asking questions. Great forum software really helps people learn so much.
- I loved using the iwindsurf forum, back in the day.
- My career philosophy is that the more I help others use technology, the more that will come back to me ten-fold. That’s just the way it seems to have worked for my Rails consultancy by creating lots of great articles to help others write great Rails programs. This is really the philosophy of the open source movement.
- I was having dinner with some awesome friends pictured below, @Garrett, @ben, @beau, I asked that if I launch a killer forum to discuss our passion for water sports, will you all help? They said sure, and I said GIDDY UP! I then asked my business partner, @stevedebrun (kiter, surfer, SUP’er and de Brun Design) if our start-up vehicle could sponsor talksurf.com, he said YES. The next day, I asked two more longtime water loving friends, @igor and @geoffljames to join us.
So this is our way to give back to the community that shares our passions for water sports. Plus we’re bringing the absolute best in forum technology.
If you’re not yet a member and need an invite, find another member or ask one of the founding crew. And please contribute your questions, your answers, and your tips. Let’s help each other.
I’ll end with this quote from Jeff Atwood which really sums up our philosophy:
My happiness only becomes real when I share it with all of you.
This is the philosophy that underlies Stack Overflow. This is the philosophy that underlies Discourse. These are all projects based on large scale, communal shared happiness. Love of learning. Love of teamwork. Love of community.
