Re^5: Please review my OSCON presentation

IMHO Slide 29 is much better now. I see you expanded that chapter with a code outline (or I forgot that it was there). Looks good, second best solution (best solution would have been... a picture ;-). Be careful not to dwell too long on these slides, because for programmers this might be obvious as soon as they know the purpose of the function, for non-programmers these are hieroglyphes.

Btw. I asked one of the best lecturers here at the university whether my advice about the pictures was correct and he said: A picture every 4 or 5 slides is enough and the pictures must be directly connected to the slide otherwise the listeners minds will wander off.

But if you loathe to throw those pictures out now (or you think my advice makes no sense), leave them in. This is then version A of your lecturer-test. Afterwards you can ask some of the listeners if they had trouble concentrating. Next time you give this presentation, show version B with fewer and more relevant pictures. Naturally that is comparing apples to oranges. You have a different audience and there are other factors like time of day and how good you present and the sample is pretty small. But on the third lecture you have an example A/B test you can talk about ;-)

Comment on Re^5: Please review my OSCON presentation

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Re^6: Please review my OSCON presentation by tilly (Archbishop) on Jul 18, 2008 at 16:55 UTC
I actually always had that. I just made it several slides. I also disagree on which solution is best. I've seen multiple programmers try to implement that function and mess it up. There are a number of subtle requirements you have to get right, and I don't think there is any clearer presentation of how to get them right than to show code. I'm not concerned about the common case being wrong. I'm concerned about the production hook going missing, programmers doing the random assignment as $person_id % 2, and other similar mistakes. I'm leaving the pictures in. I've asked a number of people for feedback, and the consensus of most of them is that the current pictures work well. While I agree that they can be a distraction for someone who is getting lost, I have points where people can resynchronize. And the talk has multiple audiences within any organization, I expect people to lose interest when I'm presenting about stuff they are not interested in. I'd like them to remain somewhat entertained, and then I'd like to get their attention when we move on to a section they care about.	[reply]
Re^7: Please review my OSCON presentation by jethro (Monsignor) on Jul 19, 2008 at 01:29 UTC
If the presentation should have the double function of providing a manual later on, then you are correct. So you sacrifice a little clarity at the presentation for better value later. For the presentation alone a picture/diagram would still be better About the pictures: Good point about the resynchronization. But I think the distraction is no danger for people already lost. It is a danger for tired listeners, for listeners where the coffee is wearing off, for everyone after the one hour mark into the presentation. On the other hand your point about keeping the ones with lost interest entertained is in these circumstances very seductive. Can't argue against that.	[reply]