Are there any 'Developer Evangelist' on the plane?
or does anyone know one who might be up for providing a little advice?
I'd like to take up a half hour of the time of someone who knows what they are doing to see if there is anything we can do better. (I only recently worked out 'DE' is a real thing)
best regards
Stephen
spdegabrielle@gmail.com
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FBO anyone who might fit the bill or is interested in developing or imparting these skills, What is A Developer Evangelist? :
"What Is a Developer Evangelist? A developer evangelist — sometimes known as a technology evangelist or advocate — communicates the value of projects to non-technical staff and external stakeholders . They also ensure that internal staff has all of the hardware and software needed to be successful."
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@countvajhula That's a really interesting article. It talks about a developer evangelist as an "emerging role" as of March 2020. Within a (large-ish) organization, they advocate the benefit of some technology to internal company stakeholders.
At the same time, I remember Microsoft having developer evangelists who would advocate MS technology and APIs to developers outside Microsoft. Several decades ago. They would do talks/demos at conferences, meet 1:1 with developers, write blog posts, etc.
So maybe "developer evangelist" is one of those job titles that means... you just don't know generally. You need to ask people what they do each day. (Thank you Richard Scarry. 
)
Probably the common denominator with both flavors of "developer evangelist" above (and other flavors?) is: They understand the product/tech and can use it themselves -- but more importantly, they know how to talk to people about their problems/needs, map the product/tech to those, and talk in terms the other person can understand and appreciate.
I think for Racket the discussion needs to start with, "Who is it for?" including "Who is it not for?". With a clearer sense of who "they" are, it's easier to figure out what needs/problems they have. You talk to them. You do a ton of listening. You start to see patterns. You try out certain approaches. You see how they react or object. You maybe change the product/tech, and/or its supporting materials. You talk to them again. It's a never-ending cycle. However, ideally you hit inflection points where some of the "customers" are "sold", and start to do more of the evangelizing work for you. At which point you have a new problem of wanting people to sing from the same hymn book, but, that's a relatively good problem to have.
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