I had read with mild amusement the minor dustup over the craze of Werewolf players at RubyConf 2007. If you don’t know what it is, you can read about it here.
Some people just really enjoy playing social games. Let’s call them the Werewolves… you know who you are, even if the rest of us do not.
Other people, however, view RubyConf as a place to get together with the other commiters on their beloved project, stay up all night, and crank out a new release before their presentation the next day. Let’s call these people the Vampyres… subsisting on mysterious red liquids, and notable for the pallor of their skin.
So what is the problem? Can’t we all just get along? Not really, cause these two sub-species have very different priorities and modus operandi. Werewolves come out in droves when the time is right (full moon). They operate as a pack, sniffing out things and then chasing after them collectively.
The Vampyre is by nature a bit more cliquish. You simply cannot have a pack of wild creatures committing patches without *some* kind of arcane ritual involved. You can call it merging branches if you want. There is usually a coven of Vampyres, with a charismatic leader surrounded by younger creatures.
I go to a conference to hang out, drink a few beers, and then go to bed to rest from the inevitable time zone changes. If I want to get into a big social hoopla, I just go to soccer practice. On the other hand, if I want to stay up all night programming in a group, I can certainly go do that whenever I want. Personally, I do not find group programming at all efficient, but if someone else does, go for it.
I feel like a covert human thinking he is hidden among these undead creatures. If the Werewolves and Vampyres want to get together in order to get down, by all means they should. Just don’t get stuck in the middle!
