July 15, 2025 • 44 mins
The Ruby community's most recognizable podcast voices gather for a heartfelt discussion at the final RailsConf in Philadelphia, sharing wisdom that extends far beyond technical topics into the realm of human connection.
From conquering social anxiety at conferences to building meaningful relationships in tech, this panel digs into what makes the Ruby community special. Drew Bragg of Code and the Coding Coders who Code it confesses that despite his outgoing appearance, he still struggles with social interactions, while Stephanie Min from The Bike Shed offers practical conversation starters that anyone can use. Chris Oliver of Remote Ruby reminds us of our built-in connection: "We're all here for the same reason—to talk about Ruby and Rails."
The hosts reveal the secret sauce behind their podcasting journeys—how they started, how they find guests, and what keeps their content fresh after dozens or even hundreds of episodes. David Hill shares how his Ode to RailsConf podcast transformed from an idea floated at last year's conference into over 50 episodes, demonstrating how quickly passion projects can flourish in this supportive community.
Perhaps most touching are the shared memories that have shaped their Ruby journeys: Drew keynoting with Matz in the audience, Stephanie's late-night cookie mission, Chris's first encounter with a listener who recognized his voice, and David's experience contributing to open source during Hack Day. These stories underline how technical communities become chosen families through shared experiences.
Whether you're a seasoned Rubyist or considering joining this welcoming ecosystem, this conversation offers a window into why people stay in Ruby despite the rise of newer technologies—it's the people and connections that transcend the code. Listen for practical advice on starting conversations, launching your own podcast, or simply finding your place in a technical community that feels like coming home.
Want to experience this special community yourself? Attend a Ruby conference, join a meetup, or reach out to any of these podcast hosts online—they're just as approachable as they sound.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone and welcome to a special episode of
Code and the Coding Coders whoCode it.
The following episode wasrecorded at the very last
RailsConf on July 9th 2025 inPhiladelphia, pa.
It features myself, stephanieMin from the Bike Shed, chris
Oliver from Remote Ruby, and itwas moderated by David Hill from
(00:21):
the Ode to RailsConf podcastand the Ruby Gems podcast.
Enjoy.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Welcome everybody to the Ruby podcast panel at
RailsConf.
I'll be kind of hosting andmoderating.
I'm going to introduce myselfand my podcast and then we'll
just kind of go down the lineand give everybody the
opportunity to do that.
My name is David Hill.
I have the Ode to RailsConfpodcast that we'll be concluding
soon as a kind of aretrospective on memories of
(00:48):
RailsConf over the years, and Ithink I've got two more weeks of
episodes and then that'll bedone.
As was announced this morningbefore the opening keynote, I'm
co-hosting the Ruby Gems podcastwith Marty Hott and we're also
going to kind of take theopportunity to give a quick
shout out to our sponsors, if wehave those.
My sponsor is a little known,rubious, by the name of Chris
(01:13):
Oliver over here and GoRails, sothank you to GoRails for
sponsoring my podcast helloeveryone.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
My name is Drew Bragg .
I am the host of Code and theCoding Coders who Code it.
I would like to shout out mysponsors by pulling in Andy
Kroll, if y'all don't mind.
We have Honey Badger.
Thank you very much, HoneyBadger.
And we have Judo Scale.
Thank you very much, Judo Scale.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Hey, I'm Stephanie Min.
I don't have multiple t-shirtson and I don't have a sponsor to
shout out.
I had no idea that washappening.
I was most recently a scenedeveloper at ThoughtBot and I
co-hosted the Bike Shed with myco-host, Joel Kinville, who is
somewhere in this audience rightover there.
Speaker 5 (01:52):
I'm Chris Oliver.
I host Remote Ruby with AndrewMason I think that's him over
there.
Woo and our sponsors are thesame t-shirts there.
We've got a honey badger.
Do you want them?
You can put them on you canshow them off.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
I don't need those sweaty t-shirts Not that sweaty,
I got one underneath.
Speaker 5 (02:09):
But yeah, shout out to Honey Badger and Judo Scale
All right.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
So we kind of brainstormed a set of questions,
the topics that we wanted totalk about here.
The first one was a scholarfrom RubyConf.
In November last year I met her, kind of talked to her a little
bit, since she was from Brazil.
I lived in Brazil for a littlebit and spoke Portuguese, and so
I was just kind of like oh,it's fun to have that connection
.
She reached out to me a couplemonths later talking about the
(02:34):
podcast.
She was getting ready to go toTropical RB.
This was a question she askedme and I kind of wanted to float
this to all three of you andsee what you have to say about
it.
How do you get better attalking to people at conferences
?
Do you do anything to prepare?
Is there anything you do thathelps in starting conversations
with people?
Do you have any tips for doingwell in a conference setting?
Drew, do you have any thoughtson that?
Speaker 1 (02:57):
For one, we are what we consistently do.
So if the more you talk topeople, the better you will be
at it, it's still something thatI struggle with, despite you
might see me running aroundacting like a fool and being
bouncy and wearing sunglassesinside for no reason, but that's
kind of how I deal with theanxiety that comes with
interacting with a lot of people.
It's something that you work onand you get a little bit better
(03:19):
at every conference and youremind yourself I have a social
battery.
I'm going to destroy it overthe next three days and then
I'll recover and I'll do betternext time.
So it's just something.
Every time you go out, you justtry to put yourself out there a
little bit more.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Well, I used to live in New York City for a year and
I was desperately in need offriends and I would constantly
be trying to make eye contactwith people and smiling at them.
No one reciprocated because Iguess that's New York for you,
but here it works quite well isto just kind of like I don't
know, be a friendly face and sayhello.
And I will share a couple of mygo-to questions, which is
(04:00):
what's a talk that you saw?
Or like, where are you comingfrom?
I think those are usually somepretty easy conversation
starters and if you're lucky andyou happen to ask that to an
extrovert, then they will do thework for you of continuing the
conversation.
So those are my tips.
Speaker 5 (04:15):
If you make 750 screencasts and go to a
conference, conversations juststart themselves conference
conversations, they startthemselves.
But no, seriously, we're allhere for the same reason to talk
about Ruby and Rails and stuff.
Any person that you see has aconnection with you already.
(04:36):
That's why we're here.
You can ask them what they'reworking on, what's interesting,
what can they teach you,whatever.
There's so many easy ways toconnect with people at a
conference like this becausethey're not all strangers.
We're all here for the samereasons, the same interests.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
To not completely cheat.
I will also answer the question.
What I told her was what helpedme was structuring it as much
as I possibly could.
For example, I'm a hugeproponent of board game night,
which we're all looking forwardto.
Tonight, drew and I areplanning on playing some
ridiculous games, but for me Ifound that having that structure
(05:14):
of a board game and the rulesof how you interact with another
person took all the pressureoff of those voices in my brain
telling me I'm doing socialingwrong, because now I've got a
set of rules by which I operate.
I was so much more comfortableand even though I was playing a
game, I could also then applythat to how I interacted with
those people going forward,because I had kind of lowered
(05:37):
those social barriers a bit formyself.
So the next question comes fromAlan Reidelhoover.
He asked to guest or not toguest?
That is the question.
What are the pros and cons ofinviting guests onto your
podcast?
How do you prepare for a guest?
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Well, I solo host my show, so if I don't have a guest
, I don't have a show.
Unfortunately, I will alwayshave a guest.
Not unfortunately.
I like having guests.
That's the whole reason why Istarted podcasting.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
But it does mean that if I can't schedule someone
unlike Chris or someone with aco-host, I just won because for
a while, the bike shit was meand Joelle and we would just get
(06:27):
on every week and just talk,with kind of minimal preparation
, and I think I was always sonervous that I don't know, like
what do people want to hear whatI have to say?
And it turns out that I thinkpeople like the familiarity of
just having people to listen toevery week and have a parasocial
(06:47):
relationship with.
And yeah, I think the bestcomments that I got was less
about like oh, I shared thislike really cool tech thing, and
more just yeah, I like that Iget to listen to people talk
about Ruby and Rails and have itbe relatable.
So I guess it really doesdepend on what you're hoping to
(07:08):
do with the podcast.
Yeah, do what feels good foryou.
Speaker 5 (07:12):
We're going to answer to this and the last question.
So if you want to startconversations with people and
you have a podcast, you can justinvite anybody you want on.
So that's a good way to startconversations with people, start
a podcast.
But yeah, having guests is agreat way to add some variety to
the show and stuff.
(07:33):
We found doing a remote Rubysometimes not a lot changes week
to week.
So having a guest was veryhelpful to break that up and
talk about something differentor whatever.
But it was often an excusebecause we just want to talk to
you about what you're buildingand what you're working on.
But you do have to be a lotmore prepared.
You have to have 10 questions.
(07:54):
If somebody just feels strangebeing on a podcast, it's helpful
Now that we use Zoom and cansee each other's faces.
We used to use Zencastr and soit was just kind of nobody saw
each other and we're talking toeach other and we talk over each
other.
It was kind of a struggle butwe'd have to get to know
(08:15):
somebody and get them to tellstories.
That can be tough if you don'thave a history with them and
you're more or less meeting themfor the first time on the
podcast.
That can be a little trickier,but you want to just prepare
that way and get to know themand share that on the show and
stuff.
But yeah, it can be good andstressful at the same time.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
I'm in a similar boat with Drew, where my whole show
was predicated on having a guestto interview and talk about
their experiences at RailsConf.
When I started the podcast, Ihad a detailed set of questions
that I had brainstormed of everypossible way a person could
have experienced RailsConf as avolunteer, as a speaker, as a
(08:59):
scholar guide.
I went through the gamut ofeverything.
It's like how did youparticipate in RailsConf?
Let's talk about every nuanceof that.
But then, as I got morecomfortable with it, I stopped
using that list of questions andI just started to kind of
riffing with it.
How did you enjoy RailsConf?
It became much more of a casualconversation, and so there's
still some preparation there,but at the same time it kind of
(09:21):
just became a lot more casual.
So our next question comes fromLucian Ginda.
I hope I pronounced your namecorrectly.
How can we attract newprogrammers to learn Ruby and
Rails?
What's the simplest way toattract new people?
Speaker 5 (09:36):
For me, I got introduced into Rails when I was
in school, like in collegejunior year, and that's a really
influential time in people'scareers they're trying to figure
out what to do with their livesand whatever, and they'll be
pushed into.
For us it was Java and NET thatwere being taught in school and
then I had a professor that wasdoing Ruby and Rails.
(10:00):
We had Blake Mizzurani fromHeroku come out back in 2010 to
our CS department.
That was maybe 10, 2010 to ourCS department.
That was like maybe 10, 15, 20people that were there and we
all watched, holy crap.
He ran one command and thendeployed this Rails application.
(10:20):
We have never deployed any ofour code ever and so it was just
mind blowing to us and that wasthe kind of stuff that stuck
with us.
This is very different thanthese other languages, these
other communities and stuff, andI also think the Scholars and
Guides program is phenomenalbecause it gets people who are
in the beginnings of theircareers to the community and
(10:41):
then they get to realize this ismore like family than a
business networking event orwhatever.
So it really changes things alot.
I think the earlier insomebody's career we can get in
front of them.
I feel like that will help aton.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
One thing that I think I've observed or noticed
is that every year at theseconferences there's always a
really big number of people whoare here at the conference for
the first time, who are new toRails.
I ran a workshop earlier thismorning and that was one of my
questions, for folks is like,who here has been using Rails
for less than a year, like lessthan three years, and I would
say that it was almost half.
So in some ways I think it'smaybe we're already doing this
(11:20):
really well, and I also kind ofhad surveyed people too about
where their background inprogramming was from, whether
they were self-taught or hadformal college education or went
to a boot camp, and somehow weall ended up here.
So I'm going to say thatperhaps it's just something that
we're already organicallypretty good at and maybe, like
(11:41):
you said, I think it will becool to see if it becomes
something that gets taught inmore formal college settings.
But this word of mouth thinghas been working pretty well for
us so far.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Yeah, definitely I think, ensuring that it's being
taught and being presented tothose learning, whether it's in
a CS, in college environment orif it's through the boot camps.
I know a lot of boot camps havemoved away from Rails because
there wasn't a lot of jobs forthose entering.
So I think keeping theavailability of junior roles
(12:11):
open is going to seriously help.
If someone's going and lookingfor a role to determine what
language they should learn, ifthey see a ton of open Ruby and
Rails roles, they're going tofeel confident that learning
this will help them get a joband get them paid.
I think that will be somethingthat if people are anxious to
learn it because there's a lotof jobs, people will then also
(12:34):
be able to teach it and we'llget a lot of people coming to
ruby and rails because that'swhere the jobs are I feel like
any answer I give is going to bereally cheap and low level.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
After those ones, for me the biggest draw has been
the community.
On top of like yeah, absolutelyneed to be paid to food for my
family and roof over their headand those types of necessities,
but the community has just beenso open and welcoming and
amazing and it's like wow,there's almost an expectation.
It's like, yeah, you shouldstep up, you should participate,
(13:04):
you should engage in thecommunity and be a part of it
and not just be a passive on theside there just kind of
watching and consuming.
And so, yeah, the way thecommunity kind of just opened up
to me.
Once I realized that andstarted trying to participate
more, I was like, oh, wow,people are okay with me having a
voice and engaging in thingsand that was kind of an
eye-opener for me and hopefullyit'll help bring more people in
(13:26):
when they realize that too.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Can I say something that Absolutely?
Is that okay?
Sure, okay.
If you all didn't know, it wasat last RailsConf that David was
floating the idea of, like,what if I started a podcast?
So it was just this time lastyear that he went from.
This is a thing that I kind ofwant to do.
Is this a good idea, bad idea?
To having done, how manyepisodes have you done now?
Speaker 2 (13:49):
When it's over, it'll be 52 episodes.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Over 52 episodes.
It's about to co-host anotherpodcast, so this is perhaps a
sign that, like, if you canthink of it, you can figure out
how to make it happen.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Well, thank you.
And I assigned a bit of blameto Drew here as well, because
the year that I met Drew, he wastelling me about his podcast
and how he used the podcast asan excuse to go talk to
interesting people, and then,five minutes later, I watched
him do that and go up to AaronPatterson and ask him to be on
the podcast, and so I was like,oh, wow, a, that's an
(14:21):
interesting avenue to take withit.
That's something that stuckwith me for a long time.
And B he is actually doing that.
He's.
He's not just saying, oh,that's a thing.
I used to trick my brain, whichis something that I have done,
but he actually did that infront of me, and so I thought
that's really interesting that Igot to see that aaron still
hasn't been on the show, so ifyou see him, please remind him.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
He's supposed to come on my show, you know what show
he has been on.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
he's come on my show.
You know what show he has beenon?
He's been on my show.
No, all right.
What's your favorite?
Railsconf or RubyConf?
Memory?
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Board game night is always the highlight of my
conference because I love boardgames.
It's a great way to meet newpeople outside of just a
conference setting.
But a little more selfishly, Igot to keynote RubyConf in
Chicago last year and that wasan amazing experience and I will
never forget that.
I've spoken at a fewconferences now, but keynoting
to a room that big with thatmany people and then I do a
(15:25):
silly little game show where Italk about weird things, about
Ruby, and sitting in the frontrow is Mats, the creator of the
freaking language, and I'mpoking a little bit of fun at
him.
I'm talking about how I namedmy dog, mats, and it's just this
surreal experience of I'mtalking to all of these people.
Mats is there.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
I'm talking about this language, that I love and
that will always stick out in myhead.
I have a few really greatmemories since becoming a
speaker, but I think one of theones that I want to highlight
because it's kind of one ofthose things that's like it just
happens because you're withthreatens, you know.
It's not anything specific aboutthe conference, it's just like
we're all here.
A few years ago, at Earl's Confin Portland I think it was at a
Doubletree or I think the hotelwas a Doubletree, and if anyone
(16:09):
knows that, the Doubletree hasfree cookies that's why it's a
hotel chain and I'm loyal to butthey'll give you free warm
cookies when you check in.
And one night I think I waswith some people who were
speaking and they were justdoing some dry runs in the hotel
lobby and so we were all kindof gathering.
It was like probably 10 pm andwe were supporting them
(16:32):
practicing and I got to go up tothe reception and ask for seven
cookies to bring to all myfriends and they opened a drawer
, like a warmer drawer, of thesecookies and I had to explain to
them that they were for otherpeople.
But my other pro tip is cookiesat Doubletree.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
I'm sure that's not the first person someone said
yeah, these are totally forother people.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Yeah, that's fair.
Speaker 5 (16:59):
There's been so many various memories.
This year is wild that I get toco-chair the very last
RailsConf Super special feeling.
But, honestly, the one memorythat I think about the most was
a few years after starting doingscreencasts and things, I got
to go to my first RailsConf inAtlanta.
(17:22):
I forget what year, that was2015.
And I was super awkward.
I didn't know anybody at alland grabbed lunch, went through
the line just occasionallytalking awkwardly with other
people, and then try and find atable to sit down at and I'm
like is anybody sitting here?
(17:42):
And they're like nope, come sitwith us.
And then somebody goes.
I heard your voice in the officelast week and I was like this
is weird.
And that was the first timethat I realized all these videos
I'd made and published on theinternet and I get to see views
and maybe an avatar and acomment or something and really
actually got to interact withpeople who are listening to the
(18:05):
screencast or even listening tothe podcast.
You don't get to interact withall the people or know who is
all listening to it.
So that's forever ingrained inmy brain as just one of those
moments.
It was like, oh, this is whatit's all about the community and
everything, so that was a goodtime.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
My favorite memory has to do with meeting one of
our Ruby celebrities, NadiaOduayo.
I met her the first time, and Ithink it was Kansas City when
she gave the Game Theory keynote.
I met her very briefly, inpassing, in the hallway.
She overheard the conversationI was having with somebody that
was going to game night thatnight and she expressed dismay
that she wasn't able to go togame night because she already
(18:45):
had plans for the evening.
But then I ended up followingher on Twitter and interacting
with her on Twitter over thenext several years and then last
year at RailsConf, after heramazing keynote, I went up to
say hi and say she did anamazing job and she remembered
me from our Twitter interactions, not from before.
At RailsConf we just startedtalking again.
(19:07):
I was like, oh yeah, she'sreally awesome and we've had
conversations since then.
I got to work with her onSpeakerLine, her open source
project for showing CFPsubmissions so that people
coming into the community canget an idea of how people do
these.
I got to work on that with herlast year at the Hack Day, which
was super fun, If any of youhave the opportunity to do the
(19:28):
Hack Day like we had today andlast year at the hack day, which
was super fun, If any of youhave the opportunity to do hack
day like we had today and lastyear.
So it's kind of a surrealexperience having the maintainer
there at the table with you.
Load up the project, clone itfrom GitHub and within five
minutes I found a bug.
There was an edit screen thatwasn't reusing the form partial,
it was just doing it in line,so it didn't do everything
correctly.
It's like, oh well, here's a PRto fix this bug.
(19:50):
That was already in theapplication and it was really
kind of oh wow, maybecontributing to open source
wasn't as difficult and hard asI thought it was.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
I actually have another story about Hack Day.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Oh, please do.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
It's okay to share.
So I think it was last year atRailsConf.
There was a ThoughtBot tablethat I felt obligated to be at
because I worked there and I hadnot contributed to any of
ThoughtBot's open source at thatpoint yet, but I was just kind
of there to help other people doit, even though I hadn't done
it myself, and I honestly wasthere to hang out more than
(20:25):
anything.
But then a couple of peopleshowed up and were actually
interested in doing it and I waslike, okay, I'll do it too.
And the three of us managed toclose an issue on FactoryBot
together.
And yeah, I got to kind of atthat person who opened it and be
like this is released now.
And it was just one of thosethings that sometimes even it's
(20:47):
not as difficult as you mightthink, it can be just as easy as
like hmm, let's look of thosethings that sometimes even it's
not as difficult as you mightthink, it can be just as easy as
like hmm, like, let's look atthe things that are good.
First issues, even without themaintainer present, I think,
yeah, I was a fake, a fake opensource contributor that day, but
I guess now I officially am onthe little screen on the little
screen.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Having someone who's kind of an authority of the open
source project.
Having someone there in personI found was super helpful to
lowering that bar.
That was kind of anintimidation factor almost,
because anonymized internetcommunication you can't read
tone, you can't read bodylanguage it's really easy to
take something that's said in avery different way than how it
(21:28):
was meant.
So having someone there at thetable where you could just look
up and be like I have a questionabout this thing how do you
want to approach this problemand actually have that
conversation face-to-face was sobeneficial to getting started.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Yeah, that's a really good point.
I do think it's validating tobe like I think I would do this
and just for someone else to belike yeah, that sounds
reasonable to me.
There is no authoritative wayto do it, but having a buddy to
just be like, yeah, what you'resaying makes sense, I think, is
really valuable.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Okay, For our next question what is one thing you
would build into Rails if youwere given complete and free
reign to add something to Rails?
Speaker 1 (22:06):
I mean authentication's there now.
So I think it's complete right.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
I'd add registration.
Just authentication doesn'thave registration.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
I mean I got nothing Authentication's in there, I
think I do.
Speaker 5 (22:21):
Are there any features you almost always add,
though?
Speaker 2 (22:25):
I'm surprised Chris hasn't jumped in with
ActiveRecord search yet.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
So search yet so that's coming search would be
nice.
Yeah, not there yet search.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Final answer.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Chat.
I feel like that's somethingthat I have had to add to a lot
of apps.
Yeah, I don't actually stand bythat answer, by the way.
I'm just saying that Fileuploads is a good example, rich
text.
Speaker 5 (22:46):
And then it's like, at that point, what else?
Maybe most applications neednotifications, but that means
(23:11):
such a vast different thing toevery single person.
It's a pretty tricky question.
I feel like, yeah, every appneeds search, but different
types of search might be moreimportant for certain
applications.
And then, once it's in there,you got to maintain it forever,
forever.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Forever.
That's one of the nice thingsabout Rails.
If it's not there, there's agem for that too, and so it's
sort of hard to be like, well,what needs to be in Rails?
It's like, well, what doesevery application need?
Probably most neednotifications, but maybe not all
of them, and there's a greatnotice gem to do notifications
and almost anything I can thinklike, is there something I
(23:45):
almost always add?
I'm trying to think of the gemsI add.
I'm like, does it need to be inRails or is it just so happens
that I build those types ofapplications?
I don't know if it needs to bein Rails, where everyone is
going to use this.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
I don't know what I would add into Rails.
Lately I've kind of had thissense that there's a lot of
things that have evolvedrecently in a lot of areas of
Rails, but that the front endhas been pretty static, I feel
like, for a while, and so I feellike we're doing some new
thoughts and new ways of doingthe front end maybe.
But I mean we have Hotwire andStimulus and and turbo, which I
(24:20):
love and adore and wish I couldwork with more, and so maybe
it's more.
Just what I'm feeling is I needto work with that more, and
since I don't get to do that inmy day job, yeah, I was gonna
ask if you were talking abouthtml rendering or javascript or
components or all of the aboveprobably all of the above.
Yeah, professionally, I'm stuckusing view js right now and so,
(24:42):
and so I would really love to beable to do Hotwire and Turbo
and Stimulus.
Speaker 5 (24:46):
There are worse things than Vuejs.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
I can confirm, I think I've worked with some of
the worst things as well, andthankfully I'm not there anymore
, but still, it's just kind oflike I really wish I was doing
something a little bit different.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
I was just reminded of Robbie Russell's talk
yesterday.
That was the Rails features weloved, lost and laughed at, and
I was kind of like, oh yeah,there's so many things that have
been taken out of Rails overtime right, because it turns out
that they weren't quite rightfor just Rails itself.
And there were things that hesaid like, oh, here's some
features that we laughed at, arekind of are no longer, and I'm
(25:22):
like, oh, that actually soundslike a really good idea.
Like the observers one, I waslike, oh, I can see how that
would have been useful.
I did not live through that era, so collective wisdom is
helping me out there, so I don'tknow, I think just.
The point I'm trying to make,though, is that I think it's
really cool that things that wethought would be really useful
we've learned from and just belike, oh, actually, maybe that's
(25:42):
not.
And then it is a living thing.
Speaker 5 (25:45):
Yeah, you reminded me of the very first Rails app.
I worked on some of theZooniverse projects.
This portion of the app that Iwas working on was all active
resource and so we had one Railsapp that was a repository of
CMS content and we would syncthat across Rails applications
(26:05):
so some of them would updatecontent, but we had a central
app that you would do all thewriting and categorization and
administration stuff in thereand then we'd sync the content
across.
And the idea of making APIrequests look like ActiveRecord
requests sounded cool and Ithought it was really awesome.
(26:26):
And then very quickly you'relike, wait a minute, joins don't
make sense across a networklike that.
This is not a database and Ican see pretty quickly because I
think that got deprecated rightaround when I was getting into
Rails or whatever and I was like, well, it seems really awesome.
But then you start using it andyou're like, well, actually the
(26:48):
conceptual compression doesn'tquite match up to what actually
is happening here behind thescenes and that one's really
interesting to look back on andsee that.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
I actually think that it could be awesome for the
right person or team.
I met someone earlier who waslike I'm looking for people who
are into active resource becauseit's still kicking for them,
and I think that's one of thosethings.
That's okay.
Actually, this would be goodoutside of Rails as a separate
gem, right, and maybe it's notsomething that we all need, but
it will work.
That's what you need.
I think it's not something thatwe all need, but it will work.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
That's what you need.
I think it's kind of funnybecause I had the exact same
experience that you did, Chris,where I ran into Active Resource
and I was like, oh wow, this iskind of cool, and at the moment
I tried to use it, it was justlike this isn't quite working
the way I thought it would.
So those are all the questionsthat we had brainstormed for the
session.
Should we take some questionsfrom the audience, If there's
(27:41):
anybody that would like to ask aquestion?
Yeah, Anton, why don't you comeup here and I'll hand you the
mic?
Speaker 4 (27:47):
Hi everyone.
I have one question about yourfirst ever podcast you ever made
.
It was a while ago probably,and I'm curious what was your
last trigger to make this veryfirst podcast, and whether it
was intentional or situational.
Maybe you made a podcast justfor yourself and then decided to
(28:09):
publish it.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
I have to blame two people for my show.
I have to blame Jason Sweat,because I listened to him do a
podcast, where he's like mypodcast is basically an excuse
to talk to people that Iwouldn't normally have an excuse
to talk to and I was likethat's a great idea, I'm
stealing that.
And then I didn't actually doanything and I was texting with
Andrew Mason one night and I waslike one of these days I'll do
it, one of these days I'll do it.
(28:31):
And he's like let's do it rightnow.
Of my ADHD brain, that was likeall right, we're doing it now,
let's go.
And that's how my podcast cameto be.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
So it's Andrew Mason's fault.
I luckily inherited a podcastand that came with an audience,
so that was very nice.
But, yeah, there have been manydifferent iterations or seasons
and life cycles of the bikeshed, so prior co-hosts include
Derek and Sage, and I listenedregularly to Chris Toomey and
Steph Curry.
If folks remember that era andthis was before I worked at
(29:05):
Thoughtbot I thought they wereso just like relatable, thought
they were my speaking ofparasocial relationships, I had
one and, yeah, then I got toknow them once I started working
there and Joel was the one whoinvited me to kind of co-host
the show with him and I wasterrified, but it was one of
(29:26):
those things that's like, oh, Ithink this is uncomfortable in
like the good way that peoplesay is required to grow as a
person.
So that's how it happened forme.
Speaker 5 (29:38):
Our first episode was , I think, just Jason Charnes
and I would hop on Zoom and talkabout Rails and life and random
stuff, and he was trying to doan online meetup and it was just
so hard to get speakers everymonth and organize that and just
(29:59):
get people to attend a Zoomcall.
So he tried that a few timesand we were just talking about
those things over Zoom ourselvesand we were like, why don't we
just turn it into a podcast andwe can just have our therapy
session together and record itand publish that on the internet
.
And that's really it.
We didn't want to do anyediting or anything.
(30:21):
We just wanted to sit down,record and click upload.
And over time that got a littletrickier.
We're like you have issues withaudio one time or background
noise or something, and you doneed editing.
So over time we got Paul ThankGod for Paul, our editor and our
sponsors make that possible andeverything and so it's evolved
(30:44):
over time, but it was literallyjust yeah, people might find
this interesting, but who cares?
It doesn't matter if anybodylistens to this or not.
We just thought we would recordit and click publish.
That was it.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
I actually have a funny story.
I don't think I've shared thiswith you before, but I was
talking to Brittany Martin onetime because she hosted the Ruby
on Rails podcast and I wastelling her about all of my
fears about hosting the bikeshed and just I did feel like I
was kind of stepping into somebig shoes that I had to fill.
And then she was like have youever listened to Remote Ruby?
They just get on there and andtalk, and so you'll be fine.
Speaker 5 (31:21):
Well, that's good.
Yeah, Part of it too is youwant to share your personality.
Some podcasts do make sense tobe scripted and everything, and
we're like that's not us, we'rejust going to wing it and
whatever.
But it also helps peopleconnect with you too, or
whatever.
But that's also one of thefunny things.
Coming to a conference, Someonewill say hi and you're like it
(31:43):
feels like we've been friendsfor a long time.
But I don't know if I know thisperson Well.
They know you really wellbecause they've listened to the
podcast.
And they come up and say hi,and that's another cheat code
and you're like we'reautomatically friends because
you've listened to the podcast,and that's pretty fun.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
Yeah, it's never a weird thing where someone to
come up and tell me that theylisten.
It's always a good thing, it'salways really sweet, it's always
very flattering.
So if that is something thatyou've been nervous about, I
promise you that people aremostly completely just grateful
that you're talking to them,engaging with them about it.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
And Stephanie, it's kind of funny that you mentioned
Brittany Martin, because I wasgoing to tell a story about her
too.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Yeah, go for it.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
I think this was two years ago I don't remember
exactly when it was Because shewas running the Ruby on Rails
podcast and I just had so manyquestions for her about how to
start a podcast Because eventhen I was like I wanted to do
it.
I had no idea how and idea how,and trying to find a niche that
(32:43):
worked for me for a podcast wasa struggle.
And so she basically was likewell, why don't you come on to
the Ruby on Rails podcast andthen you can ask me the
questions that you want to ask?
And so that was my firstexperience podcasting was being
one of her guests on the Ruby onRails podcast.
I think I can say thatliterally was a huge help of
inspiration of us, kind of likebecause she had that Google Doc
(33:04):
that she would send to guests ofthe questions that you'd be
talking about.
So like, okay, I've got a sensenow for how I can do this, for
how I can do prep, for how I cando the scheduling, and just
having that kind of guestintroduction to podcasting
before trying to do it on my ownwas a really big help.
Mr Alan Reidelhoover, apparentlyyou have another question how
(33:25):
do you get guests?
To come on your podcast.
Speaker 5 (33:28):
You want to come on our podcast?
I'd love to.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
You've already been on my podcast.
Yeah, I'm actually terrible atthat.
Vast majority of my guests haveeither been friends or I was
like shit, I need an episode.
Will you come on real quick,because I don't have an episode?
Or they will ask me.
Someone will come and say hey,I'm working on X and I really
want to talk about it.
Can I come on your show andtalk about it Because you have a
(33:52):
good format for whatever?
Yeah, that's great.
You did the work for me.
I need to get better atactually approaching people and
saying you should come on myshow.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
I've done it maybe once with Aaron, who still
hasn't been on my show.
I've cold emailed people to beon the bike show before and it
works out well, I think.
Kind of like what I was sayingearlier, it's flattering for
people.
You know, like I think mostpeople actually feel really good
to receive an invitation, so infact you're doing them a favor
is how I like to think about it.
But I've been in the same boatwhere it has been like oh shoot,
we're recording and I need afriend.
But when I do have a little bitmore capacity and I think you
(34:33):
all spoke to it earlier it'slike who do you want to meet?
It's a really good reason toreach out to them and the worst
that can happen is you don't geta response.
But most of us don't getresponses to our emails
sometimes.
Speaker 5 (34:44):
Yeah, that's a really good point.
We've had people on our podcastthat I've never dreamed of.
Adam Wathen and Derek Siverswas on our podcast and we're
like it's wild that Derek Siverswas on there.
He did Rails a long time agoreally, almost before I was even
a Rails developer, but Iremember seeing his blog posts
(35:06):
and stuff and to ask somebody tobe on the podcast, like you
said, it's an honor for them,but also like they get to share
stories and it's a benefit totheir audience too.
So like we can invite somebodyon like Adam Wathen and he's
like well, cool, this is like wewould just hang out and love to
(35:27):
chat privately anyways, but wecan have that conversation and
then I get a lot more out of itthan just that, so he can share
that with his audience and stuff.
And I feel like that's anotherreason why people seem overly
happy to say yes.
I've been always surprised thatI don't know that anybody's
ever really said, nah, sorry, Idon't want to be on there.
(35:47):
They feel honored and it'salways because I have so many
questions I want you on the show.
Let's dig into all thesedifferent things like your
background and how'd you gethere and what are you doing and
what are you doing next?
It's just pure interest thatthey're like.
Well, yeah, of course I'll beon.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
So yeah, I was actually just thinking about how
in the email inbox for the bikeshed, we actually got a lot of
people saying I'll be on yourpodcast, have me on your podcast
.
But you know, a lot of thetimes this was just SEO kind of
mostly spam.
That I did remember seeing oneemail about, like a motorbike
(36:26):
mechanic or something who wantedto be on the bike shed because
they didn't know that the bikeshed was actually about tech and
rails.
So, yeah, I think when you dohave that platform, you're
actually in a really goodposition to be like can I use
this as an opportunity for otherpeople?
And people usually are gratefulfor it, including potential
motorbike mechanics.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Yeah, see, I don't have that problem.
I have a very SEO optimizedname.
Everybody knows what's going onon my podcast and what we're
talking about.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Yeah, for me.
Because of the nature of thepodcast I was doing and I wanted
to get a wide variety ofopinions and perspectives on
RailsConf, I had to be reallyproactive about who I emailed
and invited on the show.
But every now and then I'd havesomeone on the show and they
would give me referrals to otherpeople.
Probably the principal exampleof this for me was, again, nadia
(37:17):
, because she's awesome.
After I had her on the show sheconnected me to Chad Fowler so
that then I could have him onthe show and talk about the
whole inception of RailsConf andRuby Central and how that all
started.
And so the proactivity has tobe there.
But at the same time, whensomeone comes on the show, if
they've got, hey, you should gotalk to that person over there.
(37:38):
Those opportunities are amazing.
Any other questions from theaudience?
How do you come up with a?
Speaker 5 (37:46):
constant stream of fresh ideas that are interesting
to the audience.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
I feel personally attacked by this question
because Joelle and I wouldstruggle to have a fresh backlog
of ideas every single week.
I don't know if you're askingthis for yourself or just kind
of to share our process withpeople, but we would get
together every I don't know likeevery quarter or something and
try to just bang out a bunch oftrail cards to add to our list.
But there was always, oh what's, something that has felt
(38:13):
relevant to us during that givenweek, if we've been working on
that for client work.
But yeah, I actually think thatmaybe we should have taken
something out of the playbook ofasking the audience of like,
what do you want to hear us talkabout on the bike shed, Because
you all seem to have lots ofquestions.
I don't know where you all werewhen we were trying to fill out
topics.
Speaker 5 (38:32):
If we don't have guests, it can be like a little
redundant week to week.
You know, I'm still working onthe same project I was working
on last week, so that can bequite a challenge.
But yeah, sometimes we just getworked up about something and
we're like we're going to rantabout the asset pipeline this
week or whatever.
But trying to keep an eye onwhat's new in Rails or Ruby
(38:57):
occasionally helps go down therabbit hole of some various
things or whatever you haven'tlooked into and you're like you
know what?
I'm not entirely sure all thedetails of how frozen string
literals work.
So I'm going to go look at thatand we can talk about that this
week or whatever.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
And thankfully we have this whole ecosystem of
gems and things that there'salways something new and
interesting coming out fromsomebody that it's usually not
hard to find.
Something it's like oh, I don'tknow anything about acidic job.
Maybe I can go deep, dive intothat and talk to Steven and get
to know that a little bit better.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
You're lucky too.
You can just talk about Stripeevery episode and have something
to talk about.
Right, I'm lucky.
I have the same format forevery show same three questions.
It's just up to the personcoming on the show to talk about
whatever they're excited about,and that makes it really easy
to just keep the episode rollingand everything the three
questions are there is justguardrails to keep us from going
(39:53):
completely up I think we havetime for one more question.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
Andrew mason over there.
Hey y'all big fan.
I wanted to ask y'all what isone guest from each of y'all's
shows that has been veryinfluential or that left a
lasting impression on y'all?
I'll go first because I'vealready said her name twice, so
we'll go for the trifecta.
Nadia Odoayo is amazing,awesome human being, awesome
(40:20):
story.
She was one of the people thatI ran this idea for the podcast
by last year and she was sosupportive and amazing
Connecting me to Chad Fowler.
Just everything about myexperience and interactions with
her has been amazing.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
So that's my pick why those episodes are special to
me is because we end up talkingabout ADHD a lot, which for a
while not so much now, but whenI first started the show it was
tough for me to talk abouthaving it.
It still felt bad to say I haveADHD or to be medicated for
(40:56):
something.
And being able to talk about itso openly with you helped me a
lot and I hope it helped peoplewho listen to the episodes.
So those are some of my specialepisodes.
Speaker 3 (41:07):
I had Steph Curry on the show, like a return of her
on the show and I don't know.
We got to be a little bit campyand be like, oh, stephanie and
Stephanie.
But yeah, I mean, like Imentioned, as someone who got to
listen to her on the bike shedwith Chris, long before I ever
imagined I would be hosting theshow, it did feel really special
and, yeah, at that point wewere just kind of getting to
(41:29):
talk as friends on the show andI also hope that for listeners
it was a really nice, just a wayto catch up with what she was
up to.
Speaker 5 (41:38):
Man, there's so many conversations, but there are
several people that I rememberlike we recorded the episode and
we hit stop recording and thenwe talked for another two hours
and I wish I continued recordingJose Valim was one of them that
we could have talked for eighthours straight about everything.
(42:02):
And those are always like man,there was such a good
conversation and we could havejust kept going and going.
And I don't know, sometimes youreally deeply connect with the
guests like that and they'rejust super interesting and you
just say, wow, I can't believewe just had that conversation
and I'm hungry and I've had togo to the bathroom for like two
(42:24):
hours now.
But just incredibly gratefulfor those moments and things,
and I wish so badly that Ididn't hit the stop recording
button.
Who cares if it's a four-hourlong podcast Watch Lex Friedman
and his podcasts areridiculously long sometimes and
if the conversation is good,just let it keep going, All
(42:45):
right.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
Well, we're out of time and we've got another panel
coming in next.
So thank you all for joining uson Ruby Podcast Panel today and
I hope you enjoy the rest ofthe conference.
Speaker 5 (42:54):
Thanks for listening.
Hello everyone and welcome to a special episode of
Code and the Coding Coders whoCode it.
The following episode wasrecorded at the very last
RailsConf on July 9th 2025 inPhiladelphia, pa.
It features myself, stephanieMin from the Bike Shed, chris
Oliver from Remote Ruby, and itwas moderated by David Hill from
(00:21):
the Ode to RailsConf podcastand the Ruby Gems podcast.
Enjoy.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Welcome everybody to the Ruby podcast panel at
RailsConf.
I'll be kind of hosting andmoderating.
I'm going to introduce myselfand my podcast and then we'll
just kind of go down the lineand give everybody the
opportunity to do that.
My name is David Hill.
I have the Ode to RailsConfpodcast that we'll be concluding
soon as a kind of aretrospective on memories of
(00:48):
RailsConf over the years, and Ithink I've got two more weeks of
episodes and then that'll bedone.
As was announced this morningbefore the opening keynote, I'm
co-hosting the Ruby Gems podcastwith Marty Hott and we're also
going to kind of take theopportunity to give a quick
shout out to our sponsors, if wehave those.
My sponsor is a little known,rubious, by the name of Chris
(01:13):
Oliver over here and GoRails, sothank you to GoRails for
sponsoring my podcast helloeveryone.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
My name is Drew Bragg .
I am the host of Code and theCoding Coders who Code it.
I would like to shout out mysponsors by pulling in Andy
Kroll, if y'all don't mind.
We have Honey Badger.
Thank you very much, HoneyBadger.
And we have Judo Scale.
Thank you very much, Judo Scale.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Hey, I'm Stephanie Min.
I don't have multiple t-shirtson and I don't have a sponsor to
shout out.
I had no idea that washappening.
I was most recently a scenedeveloper at ThoughtBot and I
co-hosted the Bike Shed with myco-host, Joel Kinville, who is
somewhere in this audience rightover there.
Speaker 5 (01:52):
I'm Chris Oliver.
I host Remote Ruby with AndrewMason I think that's him over
there.
Woo and our sponsors are thesame t-shirts there.
We've got a honey badger.
Do you want them?
You can put them on you canshow them off.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
I don't need those sweaty t-shirts Not that sweaty,
I got one underneath.
Speaker 5 (02:09):
But yeah, shout out to Honey Badger and Judo Scale
All right.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
So we kind of brainstormed a set of questions,
the topics that we wanted totalk about here.
The first one was a scholarfrom RubyConf.
In November last year I met her, kind of talked to her a little
bit, since she was from Brazil.
I lived in Brazil for a littlebit and spoke Portuguese, and so
I was just kind of like oh,it's fun to have that connection
.
She reached out to me a couplemonths later talking about the
(02:34):
podcast.
She was getting ready to go toTropical RB.
This was a question she askedme and I kind of wanted to float
this to all three of you andsee what you have to say about
it.
How do you get better attalking to people at conferences
?
Do you do anything to prepare?
Is there anything you do thathelps in starting conversations
with people?
Do you have any tips for doingwell in a conference setting?
Drew, do you have any thoughtson that?
Speaker 1 (02:57):
For one, we are what we consistently do.
So if the more you talk topeople, the better you will be
at it, it's still something thatI struggle with, despite you
might see me running aroundacting like a fool and being
bouncy and wearing sunglassesinside for no reason, but that's
kind of how I deal with theanxiety that comes with
interacting with a lot of people.
It's something that you work onand you get a little bit better
(03:19):
at every conference and youremind yourself I have a social
battery.
I'm going to destroy it overthe next three days and then
I'll recover and I'll do betternext time.
So it's just something.
Every time you go out, you justtry to put yourself out there a
little bit more.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Well, I used to live in New York City for a year and
I was desperately in need offriends and I would constantly
be trying to make eye contactwith people and smiling at them.
No one reciprocated because Iguess that's New York for you,
but here it works quite well isto just kind of like I don't
know, be a friendly face and sayhello.
And I will share a couple of mygo-to questions, which is
(04:00):
what's a talk that you saw?
Or like, where are you comingfrom?
I think those are usually somepretty easy conversation
starters and if you're lucky andyou happen to ask that to an
extrovert, then they will do thework for you of continuing the
conversation.
So those are my tips.
Speaker 5 (04:15):
If you make 750 screencasts and go to a
conference, conversations juststart themselves conference
conversations, they startthemselves.
But no, seriously, we're allhere for the same reason to talk
about Ruby and Rails and stuff.
Any person that you see has aconnection with you already.
(04:36):
That's why we're here.
You can ask them what they'reworking on, what's interesting,
what can they teach you,whatever.
There's so many easy ways toconnect with people at a
conference like this becausethey're not all strangers.
We're all here for the samereasons, the same interests.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
To not completely cheat.
I will also answer the question.
What I told her was what helpedme was structuring it as much
as I possibly could.
For example, I'm a hugeproponent of board game night,
which we're all looking forwardto.
Tonight, drew and I areplanning on playing some
ridiculous games, but for me Ifound that having that structure
(05:14):
of a board game and the rulesof how you interact with another
person took all the pressureoff of those voices in my brain
telling me I'm doing socialingwrong, because now I've got a
set of rules by which I operate.
I was so much more comfortableand even though I was playing a
game, I could also then applythat to how I interacted with
those people going forward,because I had kind of lowered
(05:37):
those social barriers a bit formyself.
So the next question comes fromAlan Reidelhoover.
He asked to guest or not toguest?
That is the question.
What are the pros and cons ofinviting guests onto your
podcast?
How do you prepare for a guest?
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Well, I solo host my show, so if I don't have a guest
, I don't have a show.
Unfortunately, I will alwayshave a guest.
Not unfortunately.
I like having guests.
That's the whole reason why Istarted podcasting.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
But it does mean that if I can't schedule someone
unlike Chris or someone with aco-host, I just won because for
a while, the bike shit was meand Joelle and we would just get
(06:27):
on every week and just talk,with kind of minimal preparation
, and I think I was always sonervous that I don't know, like
what do people want to hear whatI have to say?
And it turns out that I thinkpeople like the familiarity of
just having people to listen toevery week and have a parasocial
(06:47):
relationship with.
And yeah, I think the bestcomments that I got was less
about like oh, I shared thislike really cool tech thing, and
more just yeah, I like that Iget to listen to people talk
about Ruby and Rails and have itbe relatable.
So I guess it really doesdepend on what you're hoping to
(07:08):
do with the podcast.
Yeah, do what feels good foryou.
Speaker 5 (07:12):
We're going to answer to this and the last question.
So if you want to startconversations with people and
you have a podcast, you can justinvite anybody you want on.
So that's a good way to startconversations with people, start
a podcast.
But yeah, having guests is agreat way to add some variety to
the show and stuff.
(07:33):
We found doing a remote Rubysometimes not a lot changes week
to week.
So having a guest was veryhelpful to break that up and
talk about something differentor whatever.
But it was often an excusebecause we just want to talk to
you about what you're buildingand what you're working on.
But you do have to be a lotmore prepared.
You have to have 10 questions.
(07:54):
If somebody just feels strangebeing on a podcast, it's helpful
Now that we use Zoom and cansee each other's faces.
We used to use Zencastr and soit was just kind of nobody saw
each other and we're talking toeach other and we talk over each
other.
It was kind of a struggle butwe'd have to get to know
(08:15):
somebody and get them to tellstories.
That can be tough if you don'thave a history with them and
you're more or less meeting themfor the first time on the
podcast.
That can be a little trickier,but you want to just prepare
that way and get to know themand share that on the show and
stuff.
But yeah, it can be good andstressful at the same time.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
I'm in a similar boat with Drew, where my whole show
was predicated on having a guestto interview and talk about
their experiences at RailsConf.
When I started the podcast, Ihad a detailed set of questions
that I had brainstormed of everypossible way a person could
have experienced RailsConf as avolunteer, as a speaker, as a
(08:59):
scholar guide.
I went through the gamut ofeverything.
It's like how did youparticipate in RailsConf?
Let's talk about every nuanceof that.
But then, as I got morecomfortable with it, I stopped
using that list of questions andI just started to kind of
riffing with it.
How did you enjoy RailsConf?
It became much more of a casualconversation, and so there's
still some preparation there,but at the same time it kind of
(09:21):
just became a lot more casual.
So our next question comes fromLucian Ginda.
I hope I pronounced your namecorrectly.
How can we attract newprogrammers to learn Ruby and
Rails?
What's the simplest way toattract new people?
Speaker 5 (09:36):
For me, I got introduced into Rails when I was
in school, like in collegejunior year, and that's a really
influential time in people'scareers they're trying to figure
out what to do with their livesand whatever, and they'll be
pushed into.
For us it was Java and NET thatwere being taught in school and
then I had a professor that wasdoing Ruby and Rails.
(10:00):
We had Blake Mizzurani fromHeroku come out back in 2010 to
our CS department.
That was maybe 10, 2010 to ourCS department.
That was like maybe 10, 15, 20people that were there and we
all watched, holy crap.
He ran one command and thendeployed this Rails application.
(10:20):
We have never deployed any ofour code ever and so it was just
mind blowing to us and that wasthe kind of stuff that stuck
with us.
This is very different thanthese other languages, these
other communities and stuff, andI also think the Scholars and
Guides program is phenomenalbecause it gets people who are
in the beginnings of theircareers to the community and
(10:41):
then they get to realize this ismore like family than a
business networking event orwhatever.
So it really changes things alot.
I think the earlier insomebody's career we can get in
front of them.
I feel like that will help aton.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
One thing that I think I've observed or noticed
is that every year at theseconferences there's always a
really big number of people whoare here at the conference for
the first time, who are new toRails.
I ran a workshop earlier thismorning and that was one of my
questions, for folks is like,who here has been using Rails
for less than a year, like lessthan three years, and I would
say that it was almost half.
So in some ways I think it'smaybe we're already doing this
(11:20):
really well, and I also kind ofhad surveyed people too about
where their background inprogramming was from, whether
they were self-taught or hadformal college education or went
to a boot camp, and somehow weall ended up here.
So I'm going to say thatperhaps it's just something that
we're already organicallypretty good at and maybe, like
(11:41):
you said, I think it will becool to see if it becomes
something that gets taught inmore formal college settings.
But this word of mouth thinghas been working pretty well for
us so far.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Yeah, definitely I think, ensuring that it's being
taught and being presented tothose learning, whether it's in
a CS, in college environment orif it's through the boot camps.
I know a lot of boot camps havemoved away from Rails because
there wasn't a lot of jobs forthose entering.
So I think keeping theavailability of junior roles
(12:11):
open is going to seriously help.
If someone's going and lookingfor a role to determine what
language they should learn, ifthey see a ton of open Ruby and
Rails roles, they're going tofeel confident that learning
this will help them get a joband get them paid.
I think that will be somethingthat if people are anxious to
learn it because there's a lotof jobs, people will then also
(12:34):
be able to teach it and we'llget a lot of people coming to
ruby and rails because that'swhere the jobs are I feel like
any answer I give is going to bereally cheap and low level.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
After those ones, for me the biggest draw has been
the community.
On top of like yeah, absolutelyneed to be paid to food for my
family and roof over their headand those types of necessities,
but the community has just beenso open and welcoming and
amazing and it's like wow,there's almost an expectation.
It's like, yeah, you shouldstep up, you should participate,
(13:04):
you should engage in thecommunity and be a part of it
and not just be a passive on theside there just kind of
watching and consuming.
And so, yeah, the way thecommunity kind of just opened up
to me.
Once I realized that andstarted trying to participate
more, I was like, oh, wow,people are okay with me having a
voice and engaging in thingsand that was kind of an
eye-opener for me and hopefullyit'll help bring more people in
(13:26):
when they realize that too.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Can I say something that Absolutely?
Is that okay?
Sure, okay.
If you all didn't know, it wasat last RailsConf that David was
floating the idea of, like,what if I started a podcast?
So it was just this time lastyear that he went from.
This is a thing that I kind ofwant to do.
Is this a good idea, bad idea?
To having done, how manyepisodes have you done now?
Speaker 2 (13:49):
When it's over, it'll be 52 episodes.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Over 52 episodes.
It's about to co-host anotherpodcast, so this is perhaps a
sign that, like, if you canthink of it, you can figure out
how to make it happen.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Well, thank you.
And I assigned a bit of blameto Drew here as well, because
the year that I met Drew, he wastelling me about his podcast
and how he used the podcast asan excuse to go talk to
interesting people, and then,five minutes later, I watched
him do that and go up to AaronPatterson and ask him to be on
the podcast, and so I was like,oh, wow, a, that's an
(14:21):
interesting avenue to take withit.
That's something that stuckwith me for a long time.
And B he is actually doing that.
He's.
He's not just saying, oh,that's a thing.
I used to trick my brain, whichis something that I have done,
but he actually did that infront of me, and so I thought
that's really interesting that Igot to see that aaron still
hasn't been on the show, so ifyou see him, please remind him.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
He's supposed to come on my show, you know what show
he has been on.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
he's come on my show.
You know what show he has beenon?
He's been on my show.
No, all right.
What's your favorite?
Railsconf or RubyConf?
Memory?
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Board game night is always the highlight of my
conference because I love boardgames.
It's a great way to meet newpeople outside of just a
conference setting.
But a little more selfishly, Igot to keynote RubyConf in
Chicago last year and that wasan amazing experience and I will
never forget that.
I've spoken at a fewconferences now, but keynoting
to a room that big with thatmany people and then I do a
(15:25):
silly little game show where Italk about weird things, about
Ruby, and sitting in the frontrow is Mats, the creator of the
freaking language, and I'mpoking a little bit of fun at
him.
I'm talking about how I namedmy dog, mats, and it's just this
surreal experience of I'mtalking to all of these people.
Mats is there.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
I'm talking about this language, that I love and
that will always stick out in myhead.
I have a few really greatmemories since becoming a
speaker, but I think one of theones that I want to highlight
because it's kind of one ofthose things that's like it just
happens because you're withthreatens, you know.
It's not anything specific aboutthe conference, it's just like
we're all here.
A few years ago, at Earl's Confin Portland I think it was at a
Doubletree or I think the hotelwas a Doubletree, and if anyone
(16:09):
knows that, the Doubletree hasfree cookies that's why it's a
hotel chain and I'm loyal to butthey'll give you free warm
cookies when you check in.
And one night I think I waswith some people who were
speaking and they were justdoing some dry runs in the hotel
lobby and so we were all kindof gathering.
It was like probably 10 pm andwe were supporting them
(16:32):
practicing and I got to go up tothe reception and ask for seven
cookies to bring to all myfriends and they opened a drawer
, like a warmer drawer, of thesecookies and I had to explain to
them that they were for otherpeople.
But my other pro tip is cookiesat Doubletree.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
I'm sure that's not the first person someone said
yeah, these are totally forother people.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Yeah, that's fair.
Speaker 5 (16:59):
There's been so many various memories.
This year is wild that I get toco-chair the very last
RailsConf Super special feeling.
But, honestly, the one memorythat I think about the most was
a few years after starting doingscreencasts and things, I got
to go to my first RailsConf inAtlanta.
(17:22):
I forget what year, that was2015.
And I was super awkward.
I didn't know anybody at alland grabbed lunch, went through
the line just occasionallytalking awkwardly with other
people, and then try and find atable to sit down at and I'm
like is anybody sitting here?
(17:42):
And they're like nope, come sitwith us.
And then somebody goes.
I heard your voice in the officelast week and I was like this
is weird.
And that was the first timethat I realized all these videos
I'd made and published on theinternet and I get to see views
and maybe an avatar and acomment or something and really
actually got to interact withpeople who are listening to the
(18:05):
screencast or even listening tothe podcast.
You don't get to interact withall the people or know who is
all listening to it.
So that's forever ingrained inmy brain as just one of those
moments.
It was like, oh, this is whatit's all about the community and
everything, so that was a goodtime.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
My favorite memory has to do with meeting one of
our Ruby celebrities, NadiaOduayo.
I met her the first time, and Ithink it was Kansas City when
she gave the Game Theory keynote.
I met her very briefly, inpassing, in the hallway.
She overheard the conversationI was having with somebody that
was going to game night thatnight and she expressed dismay
that she wasn't able to go togame night because she already
(18:45):
had plans for the evening.
But then I ended up followingher on Twitter and interacting
with her on Twitter over thenext several years and then last
year at RailsConf, after heramazing keynote, I went up to
say hi and say she did anamazing job and she remembered
me from our Twitter interactions, not from before.
At RailsConf we just startedtalking again.
(19:07):
I was like, oh yeah, she'sreally awesome and we've had
conversations since then.
I got to work with her onSpeakerLine, her open source
project for showing CFPsubmissions so that people
coming into the community canget an idea of how people do
these.
I got to work on that with herlast year at the Hack Day, which
was super fun, If any of youhave the opportunity to do the
(19:28):
Hack Day like we had today andlast year at the hack day, which
was super fun, If any of youhave the opportunity to do hack
day like we had today and lastyear.
So it's kind of a surrealexperience having the maintainer
there at the table with you.
Load up the project, clone itfrom GitHub and within five
minutes I found a bug.
There was an edit screen thatwasn't reusing the form partial,
it was just doing it in line,so it didn't do everything
correctly.
It's like, oh well, here's a PRto fix this bug.
(19:50):
That was already in theapplication and it was really
kind of oh wow, maybecontributing to open source
wasn't as difficult and hard asI thought it was.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
I actually have another story about Hack Day.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Oh, please do.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
It's okay to share.
So I think it was last year atRailsConf.
There was a ThoughtBot tablethat I felt obligated to be at
because I worked there and I hadnot contributed to any of
ThoughtBot's open source at thatpoint yet, but I was just kind
of there to help other people doit, even though I hadn't done
it myself, and I honestly wasthere to hang out more than
(20:25):
anything.
But then a couple of peopleshowed up and were actually
interested in doing it and I waslike, okay, I'll do it too.
And the three of us managed toclose an issue on FactoryBot
together.
And yeah, I got to kind of atthat person who opened it and be
like this is released now.
And it was just one of thosethings that sometimes even it's
(20:47):
not as difficult as you mightthink, it can be just as easy as
like hmm, let's look of thosethings that sometimes even it's
not as difficult as you mightthink, it can be just as easy as
like hmm, like, let's look atthe things that are good.
First issues, even without themaintainer present, I think,
yeah, I was a fake, a fake opensource contributor that day, but
I guess now I officially am onthe little screen on the little
screen.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Having someone who's kind of an authority of the open
source project.
Having someone there in personI found was super helpful to
lowering that bar.
That was kind of anintimidation factor almost,
because anonymized internetcommunication you can't read
tone, you can't read bodylanguage it's really easy to
take something that's said in avery different way than how it
(21:28):
was meant.
So having someone there at thetable where you could just look
up and be like I have a questionabout this thing how do you
want to approach this problemand actually have that
conversation face-to-face was sobeneficial to getting started.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Yeah, that's a really good point.
I do think it's validating tobe like I think I would do this
and just for someone else to belike yeah, that sounds
reasonable to me.
There is no authoritative wayto do it, but having a buddy to
just be like, yeah, what you'resaying makes sense, I think, is
really valuable.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Okay, For our next question what is one thing you
would build into Rails if youwere given complete and free
reign to add something to Rails?
Speaker 1 (22:06):
I mean authentication's there now.
So I think it's complete right.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
I'd add registration.
Just authentication doesn'thave registration.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
I mean I got nothing Authentication's in there, I
think I do.
Speaker 5 (22:21):
Are there any features you almost always add,
though?
Speaker 2 (22:25):
I'm surprised Chris hasn't jumped in with
ActiveRecord search yet.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
So search yet so that's coming search would be
nice.
Yeah, not there yet search.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Final answer.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Chat.
I feel like that's somethingthat I have had to add to a lot
of apps.
Yeah, I don't actually stand bythat answer, by the way.
I'm just saying that Fileuploads is a good example, rich
text.
Speaker 5 (22:46):
And then it's like, at that point, what else?
Maybe most applications neednotifications, but that means
(23:11):
such a vast different thing toevery single person.
It's a pretty tricky question.
I feel like, yeah, every appneeds search, but different
types of search might be moreimportant for certain
applications.
And then, once it's in there,you got to maintain it forever,
forever.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Forever.
That's one of the nice thingsabout Rails.
If it's not there, there's agem for that too, and so it's
sort of hard to be like, well,what needs to be in Rails?
It's like, well, what doesevery application need?
Probably most neednotifications, but maybe not all
of them, and there's a greatnotice gem to do notifications
and almost anything I can thinklike, is there something I
(23:45):
almost always add?
I'm trying to think of the gemsI add.
I'm like, does it need to be inRails or is it just so happens
that I build those types ofapplications?
I don't know if it needs to bein Rails, where everyone is
going to use this.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
I don't know what I would add into Rails.
Lately I've kind of had thissense that there's a lot of
things that have evolvedrecently in a lot of areas of
Rails, but that the front endhas been pretty static, I feel
like, for a while, and so I feellike we're doing some new
thoughts and new ways of doingthe front end maybe.
But I mean we have Hotwire andStimulus and and turbo, which I
(24:20):
love and adore and wish I couldwork with more, and so maybe
it's more.
Just what I'm feeling is I needto work with that more, and
since I don't get to do that inmy day job, yeah, I was gonna
ask if you were talking abouthtml rendering or javascript or
components or all of the aboveprobably all of the above.
Yeah, professionally, I'm stuckusing view js right now and so,
(24:42):
and so I would really love to beable to do Hotwire and Turbo
and Stimulus.
Speaker 5 (24:46):
There are worse things than Vuejs.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
I can confirm, I think I've worked with some of
the worst things as well, andthankfully I'm not there anymore
, but still, it's just kind oflike I really wish I was doing
something a little bit different.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
I was just reminded of Robbie Russell's talk
yesterday.
That was the Rails features weloved, lost and laughed at, and
I was kind of like, oh yeah,there's so many things that have
been taken out of Rails overtime right, because it turns out
that they weren't quite rightfor just Rails itself.
And there were things that hesaid like, oh, here's some
features that we laughed at, arekind of are no longer, and I'm
(25:22):
like, oh, that actually soundslike a really good idea.
Like the observers one, I waslike, oh, I can see how that
would have been useful.
I did not live through that era, so collective wisdom is
helping me out there, so I don'tknow, I think just.
The point I'm trying to make,though, is that I think it's
really cool that things that wethought would be really useful
we've learned from and just belike, oh, actually, maybe that's
(25:42):
not.
And then it is a living thing.
Speaker 5 (25:45):
Yeah, you reminded me of the very first Rails app.
I worked on some of theZooniverse projects.
This portion of the app that Iwas working on was all active
resource and so we had one Railsapp that was a repository of
CMS content and we would syncthat across Rails applications
(26:05):
so some of them would updatecontent, but we had a central
app that you would do all thewriting and categorization and
administration stuff in thereand then we'd sync the content
across.
And the idea of making APIrequests look like ActiveRecord
requests sounded cool and Ithought it was really awesome.
(26:26):
And then very quickly you'relike, wait a minute, joins don't
make sense across a networklike that.
This is not a database and Ican see pretty quickly because I
think that got deprecated rightaround when I was getting into
Rails or whatever and I was like, well, it seems really awesome.
But then you start using it andyou're like, well, actually the
(26:48):
conceptual compression doesn'tquite match up to what actually
is happening here behind thescenes and that one's really
interesting to look back on andsee that.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
I actually think that it could be awesome for the
right person or team.
I met someone earlier who waslike I'm looking for people who
are into active resource becauseit's still kicking for them,
and I think that's one of thosethings.
That's okay.
Actually, this would be goodoutside of Rails as a separate
gem, right, and maybe it's notsomething that we all need, but
it will work.
That's what you need.
I think it's not something thatwe all need, but it will work.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
That's what you need.
I think it's kind of funnybecause I had the exact same
experience that you did, Chris,where I ran into Active Resource
and I was like, oh wow, this iskind of cool, and at the moment
I tried to use it, it was justlike this isn't quite working
the way I thought it would.
So those are all the questionsthat we had brainstormed for the
session.
Should we take some questionsfrom the audience, If there's
(27:41):
anybody that would like to ask aquestion?
Yeah, Anton, why don't you comeup here and I'll hand you the
mic?
Speaker 4 (27:47):
Hi everyone.
I have one question about yourfirst ever podcast you ever made
.
It was a while ago probably,and I'm curious what was your
last trigger to make this veryfirst podcast, and whether it
was intentional or situational.
Maybe you made a podcast justfor yourself and then decided to
(28:09):
publish it.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
I have to blame two people for my show.
I have to blame Jason Sweat,because I listened to him do a
podcast, where he's like mypodcast is basically an excuse
to talk to people that Iwouldn't normally have an excuse
to talk to and I was likethat's a great idea, I'm
stealing that.
And then I didn't actually doanything and I was texting with
Andrew Mason one night and I waslike one of these days I'll do
it, one of these days I'll do it.
(28:31):
And he's like let's do it rightnow.
Of my ADHD brain, that was likeall right, we're doing it now,
let's go.
And that's how my podcast cameto be.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
So it's Andrew Mason's fault.
I luckily inherited a podcastand that came with an audience,
so that was very nice.
But, yeah, there have been manydifferent iterations or seasons
and life cycles of the bikeshed, so prior co-hosts include
Derek and Sage, and I listenedregularly to Chris Toomey and
Steph Curry.
If folks remember that era andthis was before I worked at
(29:05):
Thoughtbot I thought they wereso just like relatable, thought
they were my speaking ofparasocial relationships, I had
one and, yeah, then I got toknow them once I started working
there and Joel was the one whoinvited me to kind of co-host
the show with him and I wasterrified, but it was one of
(29:26):
those things that's like, oh, Ithink this is uncomfortable in
like the good way that peoplesay is required to grow as a
person.
So that's how it happened forme.
Speaker 5 (29:38):
Our first episode was , I think, just Jason Charnes
and I would hop on Zoom and talkabout Rails and life and random
stuff, and he was trying to doan online meetup and it was just
so hard to get speakers everymonth and organize that and just
(29:59):
get people to attend a Zoomcall.
So he tried that a few timesand we were just talking about
those things over Zoom ourselvesand we were like, why don't we
just turn it into a podcast andwe can just have our therapy
session together and record itand publish that on the internet
.
And that's really it.
We didn't want to do anyediting or anything.
(30:21):
We just wanted to sit down,record and click upload.
And over time that got a littletrickier.
We're like you have issues withaudio one time or background
noise or something, and you doneed editing.
So over time we got Paul ThankGod for Paul, our editor and our
sponsors make that possible andeverything and so it's evolved
(30:44):
over time, but it was literallyjust yeah, people might find
this interesting, but who cares?
It doesn't matter if anybodylistens to this or not.
We just thought we would recordit and click publish.
That was it.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
I actually have a funny story.
I don't think I've shared thiswith you before, but I was
talking to Brittany Martin onetime because she hosted the Ruby
on Rails podcast and I wastelling her about all of my
fears about hosting the bikeshed and just I did feel like I
was kind of stepping into somebig shoes that I had to fill.
And then she was like have youever listened to Remote Ruby?
They just get on there and andtalk, and so you'll be fine.
Speaker 5 (31:21):
Well, that's good.
Yeah, Part of it too is youwant to share your personality.
Some podcasts do make sense tobe scripted and everything, and
we're like that's not us, we'rejust going to wing it and
whatever.
But it also helps peopleconnect with you too, or
whatever.
But that's also one of thefunny things.
Coming to a conference, Someonewill say hi and you're like it
(31:43):
feels like we've been friendsfor a long time.
But I don't know if I know thisperson Well.
They know you really wellbecause they've listened to the
podcast.
And they come up and say hi,and that's another cheat code
and you're like we'reautomatically friends because
you've listened to the podcast,and that's pretty fun.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
Yeah, it's never a weird thing where someone to
come up and tell me that theylisten.
It's always a good thing, it'salways really sweet, it's always
very flattering.
So if that is something thatyou've been nervous about, I
promise you that people aremostly completely just grateful
that you're talking to them,engaging with them about it.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
And Stephanie, it's kind of funny that you mentioned
Brittany Martin, because I wasgoing to tell a story about her
too.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Yeah, go for it.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
I think this was two years ago I don't remember
exactly when it was Because shewas running the Ruby on Rails
podcast and I just had so manyquestions for her about how to
start a podcast Because eventhen I was like I wanted to do
it.
I had no idea how and idea how,and trying to find a niche that
(32:43):
worked for me for a podcast wasa struggle.
And so she basically was likewell, why don't you come on to
the Ruby on Rails podcast andthen you can ask me the
questions that you want to ask?
And so that was my firstexperience podcasting was being
one of her guests on the Ruby onRails podcast.
I think I can say thatliterally was a huge help of
inspiration of us, kind of likebecause she had that Google Doc
(33:04):
that she would send to guests ofthe questions that you'd be
talking about.
So like, okay, I've got a sensenow for how I can do this, for
how I can do prep, for how I cando the scheduling, and just
having that kind of guestintroduction to podcasting
before trying to do it on my ownwas a really big help.
Mr Alan Reidelhoover, apparentlyyou have another question how
(33:25):
do you get guests?
To come on your podcast.
Speaker 5 (33:28):
You want to come on our podcast?
I'd love to.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
You've already been on my podcast.
Yeah, I'm actually terrible atthat.
Vast majority of my guests haveeither been friends or I was
like shit, I need an episode.
Will you come on real quick,because I don't have an episode?
Or they will ask me.
Someone will come and say hey,I'm working on X and I really
want to talk about it.
Can I come on your show andtalk about it Because you have a
(33:52):
good format for whatever?
Yeah, that's great.
You did the work for me.
I need to get better atactually approaching people and
saying you should come on myshow.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
I've done it maybe once with Aaron, who still
hasn't been on my show.
I've cold emailed people to beon the bike show before and it
works out well, I think.
Kind of like what I was sayingearlier, it's flattering for
people.
You know, like I think mostpeople actually feel really good
to receive an invitation, so infact you're doing them a favor
is how I like to think about it.
But I've been in the same boatwhere it has been like oh shoot,
we're recording and I need afriend.
But when I do have a little bitmore capacity and I think you
(34:33):
all spoke to it earlier it'slike who do you want to meet?
It's a really good reason toreach out to them and the worst
that can happen is you don't geta response.
But most of us don't getresponses to our emails
sometimes.
Speaker 5 (34:44):
Yeah, that's a really good point.
We've had people on our podcastthat I've never dreamed of.
Adam Wathen and Derek Siverswas on our podcast and we're
like it's wild that Derek Siverswas on there.
He did Rails a long time agoreally, almost before I was even
a Rails developer, but Iremember seeing his blog posts
(35:06):
and stuff and to ask somebody tobe on the podcast, like you
said, it's an honor for them,but also like they get to share
stories and it's a benefit totheir audience too.
So like we can invite somebodyon like Adam Wathen and he's
like well, cool, this is like wewould just hang out and love to
(35:27):
chat privately anyways, but wecan have that conversation and
then I get a lot more out of itthan just that, so he can share
that with his audience and stuff.
And I feel like that's anotherreason why people seem overly
happy to say yes.
I've been always surprised thatI don't know that anybody's
ever really said, nah, sorry, Idon't want to be on there.
(35:47):
They feel honored and it'salways because I have so many
questions I want you on the show.
Let's dig into all thesedifferent things like your
background and how'd you gethere and what are you doing and
what are you doing next?
It's just pure interest thatthey're like.
Well, yeah, of course I'll beon.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
So yeah, I was actually just thinking about how
in the email inbox for the bikeshed, we actually got a lot of
people saying I'll be on yourpodcast, have me on your podcast
.
But you know, a lot of thetimes this was just SEO kind of
mostly spam.
That I did remember seeing oneemail about, like a motorbike
(36:26):
mechanic or something who wantedto be on the bike shed because
they didn't know that the bikeshed was actually about tech and
rails.
So, yeah, I think when you dohave that platform, you're
actually in a really goodposition to be like can I use
this as an opportunity for otherpeople?
And people usually are gratefulfor it, including potential
motorbike mechanics.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Yeah, see, I don't have that problem.
I have a very SEO optimizedname.
Everybody knows what's going onon my podcast and what we're
talking about.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Yeah, for me.
Because of the nature of thepodcast I was doing and I wanted
to get a wide variety ofopinions and perspectives on
RailsConf, I had to be reallyproactive about who I emailed
and invited on the show.
But every now and then I'd havesomeone on the show and they
would give me referrals to otherpeople.
Probably the principal exampleof this for me was, again, nadia
(37:17):
, because she's awesome.
After I had her on the show sheconnected me to Chad Fowler so
that then I could have him onthe show and talk about the
whole inception of RailsConf andRuby Central and how that all
started.
And so the proactivity has tobe there.
But at the same time, whensomeone comes on the show, if
they've got, hey, you should gotalk to that person over there.
(37:38):
Those opportunities are amazing.
Any other questions from theaudience?
How do you come up with a?
Speaker 5 (37:46):
constant stream of fresh ideas that are interesting
to the audience.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
I feel personally attacked by this question
because Joelle and I wouldstruggle to have a fresh backlog
of ideas every single week.
I don't know if you're askingthis for yourself or just kind
of to share our process withpeople, but we would get
together every I don't know likeevery quarter or something and
try to just bang out a bunch oftrail cards to add to our list.
But there was always, oh what's, something that has felt
(38:13):
relevant to us during that givenweek, if we've been working on
that for client work.
But yeah, I actually think thatmaybe we should have taken
something out of the playbook ofasking the audience of like,
what do you want to hear us talkabout on the bike shed, Because
you all seem to have lots ofquestions.
I don't know where you all werewhen we were trying to fill out
topics.
Speaker 5 (38:32):
If we don't have guests, it can be like a little
redundant week to week.
You know, I'm still working onthe same project I was working
on last week, so that can bequite a challenge.
But yeah, sometimes we just getworked up about something and
we're like we're going to rantabout the asset pipeline this
week or whatever.
But trying to keep an eye onwhat's new in Rails or Ruby
(38:57):
occasionally helps go down therabbit hole of some various
things or whatever you haven'tlooked into and you're like you
know what?
I'm not entirely sure all thedetails of how frozen string
literals work.
So I'm going to go look at thatand we can talk about that this
week or whatever.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
And thankfully we have this whole ecosystem of
gems and things that there'salways something new and
interesting coming out fromsomebody that it's usually not
hard to find.
Something it's like oh, I don'tknow anything about acidic job.
Maybe I can go deep, dive intothat and talk to Steven and get
to know that a little bit better.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
You're lucky too.
You can just talk about Stripeevery episode and have something
to talk about.
Right, I'm lucky.
I have the same format forevery show same three questions.
It's just up to the personcoming on the show to talk about
whatever they're excited about,and that makes it really easy
to just keep the episode rollingand everything the three
questions are there is justguardrails to keep us from going
(39:53):
completely up I think we havetime for one more question.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
Andrew mason over there.
Hey y'all big fan.
I wanted to ask y'all what isone guest from each of y'all's
shows that has been veryinfluential or that left a
lasting impression on y'all?
I'll go first because I'vealready said her name twice, so
we'll go for the trifecta.
Nadia Odoayo is amazing,awesome human being, awesome
(40:20):
story.
She was one of the people thatI ran this idea for the podcast
by last year and she was sosupportive and amazing
Connecting me to Chad Fowler.
Just everything about myexperience and interactions with
her has been amazing.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
So that's my pick why those episodes are special to
me is because we end up talkingabout ADHD a lot, which for a
while not so much now, but whenI first started the show it was
tough for me to talk abouthaving it.
It still felt bad to say I haveADHD or to be medicated for
(40:56):
something.
And being able to talk about itso openly with you helped me a
lot and I hope it helped peoplewho listen to the episodes.
So those are some of my specialepisodes.
Speaker 3 (41:07):
I had Steph Curry on the show, like a return of her
on the show and I don't know.
We got to be a little bit campyand be like, oh, stephanie and
Stephanie.
But yeah, I mean, like Imentioned, as someone who got to
listen to her on the bike shedwith Chris, long before I ever
imagined I would be hosting theshow, it did feel really special
and, yeah, at that point wewere just kind of getting to
(41:29):
talk as friends on the show andI also hope that for listeners
it was a really nice, just a wayto catch up with what she was
up to.
Speaker 5 (41:38):
Man, there's so many conversations, but there are
several people that I rememberlike we recorded the episode and
we hit stop recording and thenwe talked for another two hours
and I wish I continued recordingJose Valim was one of them that
we could have talked for eighthours straight about everything.
(42:02):
And those are always like man,there was such a good
conversation and we could havejust kept going and going.
And I don't know, sometimes youreally deeply connect with the
guests like that and they'rejust super interesting and you
just say, wow, I can't believewe just had that conversation
and I'm hungry and I've had togo to the bathroom for like two
(42:24):
hours now.
But just incredibly gratefulfor those moments and things,
and I wish so badly that Ididn't hit the stop recording
button.
Who cares if it's a four-hourlong podcast Watch Lex Friedman
and his podcasts areridiculously long sometimes and
if the conversation is good,just let it keep going, All
(42:45):
right.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
Well, we're out of time and we've got another panel
coming in next.
So thank you all for joining uson Ruby Podcast Panel today and
I hope you enjoy the rest ofthe conference.
Speaker 5 (42:54):
Thanks for listening.
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