Heidi is a developer advocate at LaunchDarkly. She is passionate about clear communication, humane workplaces, and conference speaking. In her spare time, she sews dresses with pockets.
I'm sad to hear you feel like it's exclusionary or intimidating. I don't think most of us want to give off that impression.
If I see someone with a Ruby sticker, I figure they hack around in Ruby. When I see a totally clean laptop, I assume that someone isn't a stickers-on-computers person, but I may offer them a spaceship sticker for their water bottle. I don't usually carry my laptop with me, either, because at a conference I'm trying to listen, not work, but I like that when I'm at a hackathon or something, it gives people conversational endpoints to access.
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I'm sad to hear you feel like it's exclusionary or intimidating. I don't think most of us want to give off that impression.
If I see someone with a Ruby sticker, I figure they hack around in Ruby. When I see a totally clean laptop, I assume that someone isn't a stickers-on-computers person, but I may offer them a spaceship sticker for their water bottle. I don't usually carry my laptop with me, either, because at a conference I'm trying to listen, not work, but I like that when I'm at a hackathon or something, it gives people conversational endpoints to access.