January 13, 2026 • 53 mins
What makes a small Ruby conference feel electric instead of ordinary? We unpack the craft behind Blue Ridge Ruby—why we chose a newly renovated, accessible venue, how a single-track format keeps the room together, and the little details that turn a meetup into a memory. From open lunches across Asheville to surprise sponsor moments, we share the thinking that goes into designing an event that celebrates Ruby, supports new speakers, and still feels human-scale.
Jeremy breaks down the CFP playbook: write clear abstracts with specific outcomes, submit widely, and rehearse before acceptance so you’re not rushing at the end. With only ten talk slots, curation is both art and constraint. We talk honestly about the selection process, why “no” often means “not now,” and how meetups can incubate a 10-minute idea into a conference-ready talk. We also explore the real costs—venues, video, capacity—and why accessibility drove the move to the YMI Cultural Center.
Then we zoom out to the work behind the work: choosing bounded risk to stay motivated, planning sustainable volunteer roles, and creating a container that invites the community to bring their best. On the engineering front, we share how voice-first AI workflows changed our Rails practice. Whisperflow plus LLMs accelerate iteration when conventions set guardrails. We describe using diverge–converge patterns to try multiple implementations, keeping architectural intent while rejecting unnecessary complexity. AI is the nail gun; we’re still the builders who decide what the house should be.
Want to be part of it? The CFP is open, sponsors are welcome, and volunteers make the magic real. Subscribe, share this episode with a Ruby friend, and drop us a review—then send your proposal or reach out about helping in Asheville at BlueRidgeRuby.com.
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode
of Code and the Coding CodersWho Code It.
I'm your host, Drew Bragg, andI'm joined today by a repeat
coding coder, Jeremy Smith.
Jeremy, anyone who hasn'tlistened to your last episode or
is unfamiliar with you, pleasedo a quick introduction.
SPEAKER_00 (00:15):
Hey Drew, yeah.
Thanks for having me back.
I'm Jeremy Smith.
I am a product-focused Railsdeveloper.
I run a tiny one-person Railsstudio called Hybrid, and I do
the Indie Rails podcast with myfriend Jess.
And this is sort of new, but I'mgoing to be taking over
(00:38):
facilitating the RubyConsultants quarterly call with
Ruby Central, which I want toget more people involved in this
that are in the consultingspace.
So going to be helping outthere.
And I am a once in futureconference organizer with Blue
Ridge Ruby in Asheville, NorthCarolina.
SPEAKER_01 (00:57):
Yes, yes.
Excited for that.
And we're going to get into allof that in our show.
The way this is going to work isI'm going to ask Jeremy three
questions, ask him what he'sworking on.
Doesn't actually have to be workwork.
It can totally be like, hey, I'mputting on a conference style
work.
What kind of blockers he has,and what's something cool, new,
or interesting that he'slearned, discovered, built,
(01:18):
could be tools, could be books,could be anything.
Doesn't have to be codingrelated.
So we were going to talk aboutBlue Ridge on your what are you
working on, but I first want totalk about the call that you're
going to be running with RubyCentral.
Talk a little bit about that.
What's the call like?
Who's supposed to be there?
Things like that.
SPEAKER_00 (01:37):
Yeah, the reason I mentioned it, I keep trying to
mention it wherever I canbecause this is sort of a little
known kind of quarterly meetupon Zoom for agencies and
consultants, freelancers,anybody in kind of Ruby and
Rails that provides services.
And so it'll be agency owners orpeople within agencies coming on
(02:03):
the call.
It'll be independent contractorscoming on the call.
And we're talking about all thethings related to our service
work inside of the Ruby Railsecosystem.
You can get a lot of informationabout sort of the industry in
general.
But if you want to know Rubyspecific stuff, this is like one
of the best places to go to kindof share what's going on.
(02:26):
What are we seeing in the Rubyspace right now?
Where are people finding successwith leads?
What are the challenges peopleare facing right now in the
market, in our particularmarket?
There's really just nowhere elseto get that than this call.
And quarterly ends up being apretty decent cadence, I think,
for kind of sticking your headup and kind of talking around to
(02:50):
other folks in the same areaabout what's going on.
And that's been really helpful.
And it's been really nicebecause we all have our business
struggles.
And when you're able to raise,you know, an issue in that group
and have multiple people say,Yeah, we have the same thing.
Yes, we're going through that aswell.
(03:10):
Yes, we've also seen that.
It's really helpful.
It's really nice.
And maybe in some senses itwould be like we're competitors,
maybe, but not really.
And it feels more like a bunchof people rooting for each other
since we're all doing the samekind of work.
So typical Ruby community stuff.
Yeah, yeah.
I love to see it.
You know, I don't know if youknow what other communities and
(03:32):
languages have this kind ofthing, but it feels very much
Ruby to me.
SPEAKER_01 (03:37):
For sure.
Sounds like it.
SPEAKER_00 (03:39):
That's awesome.
Congrats, I think.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Yeah.
I think for a while they weretrying to decide like there
wasn't really a person to go toto facilitate it.
And maybe the people thatoriginally suggested starting it
didn't know what to do with itor left.
And then they were like, whatare we doing with this thing?
And I keep saying, Oh, I'mloving this.
(03:59):
This is good for me.
Like, I want more of this.
I want more people to come.
SPEAKER_01 (04:03):
So what we were actually going to talk about on
the what are you working on wasyour back to helping to run,
organize, do all the things,make the magic happen that is
Blue Ridge Ruby.
So for anyone who doesn't knowabout Blue Ridge Ruby, hasn't
been to one in the past, doesn'tsee all of your posts about it,
(04:23):
recently talk a little bit aboutBlue Ridge Ruby.
SPEAKER_00 (04:26):
Yeah.
Back in 2022, thispost-pandemic, I started going
to a lot of Ruby and Railsconferences.
And it was a big shift for me ininvesting more in being involved
in the community and in showingup in those places where people
are meeting together in person.
(04:47):
And that had a huge impact on methat year.
And toward the end of the year,I thought, man, I'd love to put
on a conference of my own.
That's that would be amazing.
I was really nervous to try topull that off on my own, but
knew a guy in Asheville whoreached out and said, Hey, I'll
help you.
And that turned out to be Mark,one of my co-organizers.
And so the two of us kicked offBlue Ridge Ruby in Asheville in
(05:11):
2023.
And it was one of the scariestthings that I did, and also one
of the things I'm most happyabout.
It's hard to explain why it hadsuch an impact on me, but when
you get over 100 people togetherand create an experience where
(05:35):
they're all contributing to ittogether and having a great
time, it was just amazing.
It was an amazing experience,amazing feeling to have like
maybe created the container forsomething really good to happen.
And I keep telling people itreminds me of that parable of
stone soup.
I don't know if you've everheard this parable before.
(05:56):
Okay.
So when I was a kid, we had thisbook, and it's like the story of
stone soup.
And this guy who is reallyhungry goes to a town and he's
begging for food, but nobodywants to give him anything.
So he gets this idea and hefinds an old pot and he fills it
with water and he starts a fireand he starts cooking and people
(06:17):
start walking by and they'resaying, What are you making?
And he said, Well, I've makingstone soup.
He has a stone in the pot andthe water is cooking.
And they're like, Oh, that'sinteresting.
And he's like, Yeah, well, itwould be really good if what
this really needs is somecarrots.
And so someone's like, Oh, I gotsome carrots back at home.
So they run out, get thecarrots, bring them back.
They put those in the pot.
Oh, this is smelling reallygood.
(06:38):
Some other people come by,they're like, Oh, what are you
making?
I'm making stone soup.
Yeah, yeah, it would really begood if I added some potatoes.
So, oh, we got some potatoesthat run, get the potatoes, come
back.
And this goes on and on.
You got the onions and then themeat or whatever.
And eventually he's got like awhole stew.
And at the end, it feeds him andeverybody else.
And there's a savvy to that.
(07:01):
And uh something I love aboutthat is that this guy didn't
like contribute really anythingexcept the container.
Like everybody else brought thethings, the things that actually
made it nourishing, but he hadthe concept and he set the
vision for it and invited peopleinto what became this amazing
(07:21):
stew.
And so I think about that withlots of things, but particularly
with conferences, because it'sinviting lots of different
people to contribute the thingsthat they have, whether it's
speakers or sponsors,volunteers, scholars, just
people that are friends coming,bring somebody maybe new into
the industry, and everybody'scontributing their piece.
(07:43):
And then all together, it likemakes this really wonderful,
like nourishing thing.
But somebody has to make thecontainer.
Someone just has to be like, putthis pot down, throw some stones
and water in it, and say, ooh,this smells really good.
You know what this needs?
And it's kind of magical.
SPEAKER_01 (08:00):
Yeah.
The first Blue Ridge wasawesome.
Still one of my favoriteconferences that I've been to.
It had a special energy to it.
I've been to a lot ofconferences that have a similar
energy.
And I feel like the consistencythere is twofold.
It's an organizer who reallycares about putting on a great
conference, and it's a smallconference.
(08:23):
No shade for Rails World orRubyCon for a big conference.
Those are special in their ownway, but there's something about
those smaller where you get tomeet everybody, talk to
everybody.
Especially Blue Ridge was thefirst one that I had gone to
where you had that open lunchconcept where instead of like
you're sitting in this gianthall and there's some food there
(08:45):
and you stand in line for it,and then you sit at a table with
maybe eight people.
If you're lucky, you go out intothe city you're at and meet with
giant groups, and like you can'twalk past a restaurant without
being like, hey, look, there'ssome Rubyists in there.
And that was so cool.
And yeah, Blue Ridge was great,and I'm super excited to see you
back at it, organizing it andgetting it going.
(09:06):
The new space looks super cool.
The original space was awesome.
The new one looks like it canhold a few more people.
SPEAKER_00 (09:57):
It is smaller.
It's old, 207 people seated.
The previous space, I think itwas maybe around 300, 350, I
want to say.
And I loved that space.
The theater we were inoriginally was just gorgeous.
I fell in love with it.
They do weddings there becauseit's just like a beautiful
space.
But there were accessibilityissues with that building that I
(10:21):
didn't feel comfortable using itagain.
And so I decided to do a searchfor something else.
And the WaiMai Cultural Centercame up.
It was actually just recentlyrenovated.
They've done a really nice jobwith the space.
I think it's going to be great.
And it has a lot of uniquehistory to it.
So I'm excited about that.
They also have like a streetlevel space that is somewhat
(10:44):
separate from the auditoriumthat I'm planning to set up for
like hangout space.
And so I'm pretty excited aboutthat.
I think it's going to come outwell.
It may be that this ends upbeing like a long-term space for
us.
We'll see because the venue endsup being like just so
challenging.
Like you're trying to designeverything else around the
spaces that you have, and itdetermines your capacity and so
(11:09):
many other things.
So if it works out well, we mayend up using them in the future.
Also, venue is one of thebiggest costs.
I think video production mightbe the biggest, but then venue
is like usually right afterthat, or they might be tied for
first or something.
(11:30):
So that's significant.
And at least this year, it'spretty reasonable.
So I'm happy about that.
And I'm hoping I want to see ifI can pack it out.
If I can get 207 people seatedin that space, I think it'd be
great.
So that's what I'm hoping for.
And that was really the firstthing was figuring out space
because you can't do anythingelse until you know the time and
(11:54):
place for something.
You can't invite sponsorsbecause you've got nothing to go
on.
You can't sell tickets becausepeople don't know when it even
is.
You got to tell me, give me somedates here.
You know, like there's so manyother things.
So it all hangs on that as thefirst piece.
So getting that nailed down in,I think it was end of November
was great.
And then that really got usrolling.
(12:16):
CFPs are open or open soon.
They're open until February 3rd.
We are a Ruby conference, so notnecessarily a Rails conference.
Blue Ridge is more broadly Ruby.
Probably have some one or twotalks related to Rails, and most
people there will be probablyworking in Rails day to day, but
(12:37):
the focus is Ruby, but reallypretty general within Ruby.
Really want to have a broad mixof topics and speakers.
Yesterday I released a videowhere I talked about our CFP
process and my sort of generaladvice on doing talk
submissions.
(12:58):
And it ended up being like 30minutes.
I didn't need to go on and on.
I didn't realize I had so muchto say about it.
Actually, what who it was, itwas Adrian Marinhee was like,
hey, you need to make morevideos as you like work on Blue
Ridge just to share what you'redoing.
So I was like, okay, I'll starta behind the scenes kind of
thing.
And my first one was like theCFP process and my advice for
(13:20):
people with sending talks toeither our conference or other
conferences, other Rubyconferences.
And so I'm hoping that'shelpful.
And for folks that areinterested, please, this is the
time to be writing talkproposals.
There's so many CFPs open rightnow.
A few of them, RBQ conf isclosing.
He extended it one more day.
I think it's closing tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01 (13:40):
That'll be January 8th.
By the time this goes out,that'll be closed.
That would be closed.
SPEAKER_00 (13:45):
There are some at the end of January, I want to
say, but check Rubyevents.organd there's a CFP page and you
can see all the upcoming ones.
But right now is the time to gettalks out there.
SPEAKER_01 (13:57):
Biggest advice I have for people when it comes to
CFPs is like don't wait for theacceptance to start fleshing out
the talk too.
Like I used to be very muchteam, submit the CFP and then
write the talk if you'reaccepted.
But like usually you're acceptedand it's like you have so little
time.
It feels like a lot of time, butyeah, get out to go do like
(14:20):
version one at a meetupvirtually or in your town or
something to get some reps in,especially if you're new to
speaking, like it's completelydifferent when you're actually
in front of people giving thetalk.
Get the CFPs submitted and workon the talk.
SPEAKER_00 (14:39):
I always time track everything.
So it usually takes me around 50hours to put a talk together.
And if that's my one thing I'mdoing during that period, I can
probably throw 10 hours a weekat something.
So I'm like five weeks is myminimum to put a talk together.
But even that is kind of pushingit.
So I'd rather have two months toget a talk together and feel
(15:01):
like I was gonna do a good jobwhen I came time to give it.
SPEAKER_01 (15:05):
So no tracks per se for Blue Ridge Ruby, just a
single Ruby in general.
SPEAKER_00 (15:11):
Single track and no themes this year.
Kind of like just having it kindof open like that.
And we have 10 talk slots.
So it's gonna be a challenge forus to really whittle that down
and create a program that hassomething for everybody.
But that is part of the funtrying to figure that out.
SPEAKER_01 (15:31):
Going through CFPs is a daunting task.
It really is.
SPEAKER_00 (15:35):
Like it's practically like a week of work
the week that it drops becausepeople submit their proposals
and then you have to hit theground running because you need
to get an announcement outprobably the next week.
So that week after February 3rdor that week, it's gonna be a
ton of work, just reading lotsof proposals and making lots of
(15:55):
decisions, and then sending lotsof messages to people, giving
them updates on where theirproposal stands.
SPEAKER_01 (16:03):
I'm sure you're gonna get a ton of good ones.
I remember doing the CFPs forthe last Rails Conf, and it was
just like, I want to see so manyof these talks, and we have so
few slots to put them in.
And it was like we had to givesome no's where I just wanted to
be like, can we write them likea very detailed, like your talk
sounds freaking awesome, but wedon't have enough space for
(16:25):
everyone's talk.
We're so sorry.
(17:22):
It was just like, man, I hopeplease, please submit it to like
everywhere else and let me knowwhere accepted because I want to
see this talk.
SPEAKER_00 (17:30):
That was part of my advice actually in the video I
just made, which is like, thisis a numbers game.
And so submit more talkproposals and submit to more
conferences.
So many times, it's not that wewould never use your proposal if
it's a no.
It's like, wow, we had so manygood ones.
I would love to see this thenext year, or I'd love to see
this in another conference.
(17:51):
Maybe it needs a few tweaks andit would be great.
But it's rarely like, nah, thisis no good.
You know, it's almost neverthat.
When people can, if you put afew hours into a talk proposal,
get it out to as manyconferences as you can.
SPEAKER_01 (18:05):
Meetups too.
Meetups are always looking forpeople to do speakers.
You have an idea for a CFP, butmaybe you don't know how to make
it a 30-minute, 45-minute talk.
Start with that 10-minute talkthat you give at a meetup.
And then as people fieldquestions, you build your talk
from there.
And then when you feel like youhave 30 minutes of content, you
submit it to a conference.
(18:27):
So there's a lot of stages togetting to be able to talk, talk
about whatever you want otherpeople to learn.
But yeah, that's cool thatyou're doing the behind the
scenes videos on everythinggoing on with Blue Ridge,
because it's still a mystery tome.
Like, even getting involved withsome of the ones in the past,
I'm still like, oh, I would havenever thought about that.
(18:50):
It makes total sense now that Iknow it.
SPEAKER_00 (18:51):
But there are a lot of things like that.
So even things like, all right,just this morning, I'm looking
through Asheville trying to findlike cool or interesting like
foods that are made in the town.
Part of what I think is greatabout regional conferences is
that you get a flavor for thisplace that you're visiting.
(19:12):
And Asheville has a really coolculture.
It's pretty granola.
There's a lot of like outdoorsypeople, a lot of hippie people.
And so I was like, found thisreally good pizza.
Yeah, mountain towns have goodpizza.
I don't know what this is, but Ifound like this guy that makes
artisanal pickles.
And I was like, hey, maybe Ishould do like a pickle bar, you
(19:35):
know.
So I'm just like looking atrandom things like that.
Like, why are you doing this?
Well, I want to give theexperience of please don't quote
me on the pickle bar.
I don't know if I'm gonna dothat.
But it's just like I'm lookingat these things like listen, if
I get to Blue Ridge and there'sno pickle bar, I'm gonna be
pissed.
I know, right?
But sometimes, like, okay, youhave like a sponsor who's like,
hey, um, would love to beinvolved somehow.
(19:57):
Are there any specialopportunities that we could work
out?
And then I'm thinking, like,well, what could we do that
would be interesting?
What would be unique that youhaven't seen in another
conference that people wouldtalk about later?
They would be like, Oh, this isamazing.
The first year we did the icecream sandwich truck that came
after the conference.
SPEAKER_01 (20:14):
That was super cool.
SPEAKER_00 (20:15):
I love that.
That was so great.
I mean, I didn't get to go downand do it.
I was busy like cleaning upafter the conference, but I did
get to look, peek down from thethird story window at everybody
down below, you know, gettingtheir ice cream sandwiches, and
that was pretty awesome.
So just like cool things likethat helps an event stand out in
your mind from every other eventthat you go to.
(20:37):
Oh, that was the one where wedid blah, blah, blah.
That matters.
And when we can do that alongwith sponsors who are looking
for something unique tocontribute to, I think that can
be great.
So I ended up on all theserandom rabbit trails, you know,
trying to figure out like whatwould be interesting, what would
be cool, and then these researchprojects that you never would
(20:58):
have expected you'd be doingjust because trying to create
these unique experiences.
Is that like a bit of a blocker?
SPEAKER_01 (21:06):
You live close enough that you're familiar with
the area, and then you're like,how do I give someone a taste of
this area that I know well inalmost a familiar way?
Like, I feel like if I'm veryfamiliar with something, it's
almost hard to give people anintro to it where I feel like
you're getting the vibe of thething that I'm trying to show
(21:29):
you without being overwhelmed.
Because if I'm very familiar,I'm like, I know all the things.
SPEAKER_00 (21:35):
I think the fact that I live that idea.
I think the fact that I live anhour away.
Way helps actually in this casebecause I know the stuff that
people would want to go toAsheville for rather than living
there and being like, oh, I'm soover this thing because all the
tourists come here for that.
So I think that absolutelyhappens.
You get like blind to what'sunique about the place that you
(21:57):
live.
But people that come to yourtown, fly or drive, spend the
weekend in your town.
And Asheville is a very popularholiday destination, weekend
destination, that kind of thing.
They're coming for particularthings.
They're coming for the BlueRidge Parkway, for the hiking,
for you know, all the outdooractivities, for the
microbreweries, for the foodscene, for the music scene.
(22:19):
There's a certain sort ofgranola, hippie aesthetic that's
there that is the outside flavorof Asheville.
Well, that's really only onepart of Asheville.
There's tons of other things,you know, that aren't hippie
granola.
That's the reality of everyplace.
But when people associate aplace in their minds, they kind
(22:43):
of want that experience, thesort of first pass experience of
that place.
And I think like DetroitRailscoff did a good job of
playing up Detroit, for example.
But people that are from Detroitmight be annoyed, you know, like
at some point, like, I don'twant more Detroit-style pizza or
any references to Motownanymore.
You know, like, yes, I get it.
Like, it's cliche now for us.
(23:04):
But for the yeah, for them, yougotta give them the cliche.
You know, you gotta give themthe thing that they have the
association with.
SPEAKER_01 (23:12):
Yeah, when everybody came to RailsConf in Philly,
like you had to go get acheesesteak.
Oh, right.
Yeah, absolutely.
You don't come to Philadelphiaand not get a cheesesteak unless
you live here and you've had somany cheesesteaks you don't want
to open it one ever again.
Um, but that only happens if youdon't go to Shays.
So, what kind of blockers do youhave, either work-wise or
(23:34):
related to the conference thatyou want to talk about?
SPEAKER_00 (23:37):
This is kind of a different direction, but Blue
Ridge ended up being the thingthat unblocked me to for one of
my blockers, which is I've cometo realize more and more that
I'm the kind of person thatalways needs something going on
the side, pretty much all thetime.
Either I'm deciding on the nextweird thing that I'm gonna do on
(23:59):
the side, or I'm doing it, orI'm like recovering from it and
getting ready to do the nextone.
And it's kind of like endlessfor me.
Like, and in the past, I used tofeel bad about it, like guilty
that I always need something tomake life chaotic or stressing
myself out.
I've come to accept that it'sjust like part of my nature that
(24:20):
I always need some project.
And the last time I was on CodeEncoders, it was when I was
building Liminal, and that wasmy big thing.
And this was like a little overa year ago.
And that was a really funproject, and it didn't quite
materialize the way I had hoped,but I did have a lot of fun
building it and had a lot ofgreat connections to people who
(24:46):
were interested in how I wasgoing about development, my
product choices, and all thestuff that I was sharing about
it.
That was actually one of the bigtakeaways from building this app
was a lot of the people thatwere most interested in hearing
from me wasn't necessarily aboutmy fresh take on old school
(25:07):
forums.
It was how I was thinking aboutbuilding products and how I was
building with Rails.
And after that project, it sortof dawned on me that that was
like who was already payingattention to me, other Rails
developers and product focusedpeople, and that I really
(25:28):
enjoyed making videos andcontent for them.
And so this past year, I changedsome things around in the spring
to kind of open up some time soI could work on a new project
related to content that I washoping to really get off the
ground in 2025.
And for a number of personalreasons, I wasn't able to pull
(25:52):
that off.
And it was really frustratingme.
It was a combination of likeneeding a good amount of time
and energy to put in this newventure, but also realizing like
I didn't know if I had what ittook to pull it off because
there was no sort of upperbounds on the time it might
take.
(26:12):
And for me, like if I go toolong without having this other
side thing like that I'm workingtoward, it gets kind of
depressing, or like I sort oflose motivation.
I kind of need a thing that I'mgoing for.
The thing is, like, I still lovemy day-to-day work.
I love working with my clients,I love building products, I love
(26:33):
using Rails every day.
But there's something abouthaving some discretionary time
that I put toward some biggergoal, some other thing that I
have like complete control over.
Maybe not complete, but a lot ofcontrol over that always makes
me feel alive, feel excited,energized, all that.
(26:54):
And so this other project that Iwas hoping to pull off,
content-wise, because of thetime commitments and because of
also the changes with AI, Istarted to feel like will people
like be as interested in Rubyand Rails related content now?
And I started seeing people talkabout that.
Like Nate Burkapec had saidsomething yeah, a while back
(27:17):
about this that maybe no one'sgonna even care to buy like
dev-related content, or youknow, if we can just ask LLMs
for everything, like maybe itdoesn't matter anymore.
So I've been like concernedabout that.
So I needed something that waslike exciting to look forward
to, something to put this extraenergy into, but that had like a
(27:41):
clear outcome and a upper boundsto it.
And that brought me back aroundto Blue Ridge.
And that's really kind of whereI landed.
Blue Ridge ended up being a wayto unblock myself on having sort
of a next thing to work on thatwas exciting to look forward to.
And I don't know why I needsomething stressful to keep me
(28:03):
like excited, but there's someelement of risk.
I need something risky.
I can't risk my client work.
I can't risk my day-to-day work,but I need something that feels
like risky, where there's somechance of not succeeding that
gets me excited and feels likean adventure.
I guess maybe that's the way tosay it.
(28:24):
And with this other project, itwas too risky, maybe for where
it was too much unknown, and Ineeded something slightly less
risky to go after now.
And with a conference, there'snot like a real big blocker,
it's just lots of details, justlots of details and lots of
(28:46):
effort.
But it's doable and there's alimit to it.
By May 2nd, when the conferenceis over, it's pretty much done.
Not entirely because videoproduction is still being done,
but basically done at thatpoint.
And so there is an end.
SPEAKER_01 (29:01):
And there's a moment in time for it.
SPEAKER_00 (29:03):
Yeah.
And I also know because I timetrack things, that took me 250
hours of in 2023 to put on theconference.
And I think I can probably do itin less.
I'm aiming toward 200 hoursbetween now and April 30th.
So I think that also lets meknow like I've got a reasonable
idea of how much time I'mputting into this.
And yeah, it's a lot of time,but it's doable.
(29:25):
I can make this happen.
But it's still that enough riskthat feels like adventurous to
me.
SPEAKER_01 (29:33):
That makes sense.
That's a cool way to unblockyourself going and running a
conference.
Not, I think, one of the waysthat someone's ever mentioned
they unblocked themselvesbefore.
Like, I was feeling blocked, soI ran a conference.
But I like it.
You're very self-aware too, oflike, I need something going on.
(29:53):
I need, I hate being stressed bysomething, but at the same time,
if I'm not a little stressedabout it, there's a good chance
that I'm not actively workingtowards it.
Even when it comes to likeprogramming books, hey, you can
do these steps, and I like I getreally engaged for the first few
chapters, and I'm like, there'sno risk here.
(30:14):
Like, if I just put the bookback on the shelf, no one knows,
no one cares.
Yeah, there's gotta be a littlebit of stress.
There's gotta be a little bit offight or flight feeling for me
to be like, all right, I gottafucking do this thing.
I gotta like, you know, works,got deadlines, works.
If I don't do it, my projectpartner's gonna call me out, you
know, my boss is gonna call meout.
(30:35):
Okay, that helps me get my workdone.
I still enjoy what I do, whichis why I do it, but the little
bit of stress helps.
That took me a really long timeto figure out.
I feel like I was like in mymid-30s when I was finally like,
I need stress or I don'tfunction.
This is annoying.
SPEAKER_00 (30:54):
And I like my bulk rights.
There's a fine line between theright amount of stress and too
much, I think.
And sometimes we go overboard.
But I think especially when youcan pick the thing that you're
gonna be stressed about, itmakes a big difference.
There are plenty of things in mylife that are super stressful
that I did not pick, or I pickedthem so long ago that I don't
(31:17):
even remember.
But when I can pick a projectlike this and know, okay, I'm
gonna be stressed about this.
There are gonna be periods whereI'm gonna be losing my mind.
I'm so stressful, you know, I'mso stressed about this thing.
But in general, it's gonna be agood stress because there is an
upper limit to how much effortand energy and time I can put
(31:41):
into this thing.
There is a deadline, it willend, it won't go on in
perpetuity.
And at the end, there's like areal good outcome that I've seen
before.
And it may not be the same, andI could fail, and something
could go wrong, but probably ifI work hard enough and pay
attention to the details, I'llbe able to pull it off.
(32:01):
Probably it's gonna turn out,and I'm gonna be happy I did it.
And I may not be able to pull itoff the next year, but I commit
to this one at a time, you know.
Like I think some people expectthat with conferences that
should sort of be like endless.
You can always expect the nextone.
It's just on repeat orsomething.
And I've come to realize thatthe people that can pull that
(32:22):
off, that is pretty amazing andalso pretty rare.
And that really each timeorganizers commit to doing a
conference again, it's amonumental effort for them.
And taking it one at a time andmaking the commitment this time
and the excitement for that, andnot ever feeling the obligation
(32:44):
to have to continue somethingforever.
I don't know how you feel with apodcast, but I commit to a
podcast, and there's like asomewhat of a schedule grind
that you get into that meansyou're always on the hook in
some ways for putting contentout there.
And I think you can't quite dothat same kind of thing with a
(33:05):
conference, or maybe youshouldn't.
And maybe you shouldn't withpodcasting either.
I don't know.
But at least on my side withIndie Rails, it does feel more
doable, I guess, to say, allright, yeah, I can stay on the
hook for this.
SPEAKER_01 (33:16):
Yeah, I have zero pressure in my podcast.
If you haven't noticed, I thinkthe last episode came out in
November.
I took all of December offbecause I was losing my mind at
work.
And like the first missedepisode, I was like, oh my God,
like I can't miss another one.
This is horrible.
Like, people are expecting a newepisode.
And then I was like, but I'mstressed out.
(33:39):
I won't give a good episodebecause I'm stressed out.
And I'm like, I don't want to bedoing this right now.
I have so much work to get donebefore winter break starts,
yada, yada.
Like, no, you know what?
No, I podcast mostly, there's asplit.
It's mostly for me because Ienjoy talking to people.
And then I just record theconversation and put it out, and
that's my contribution to thecommunity.
(34:00):
But like, I don't owe that toanybody.
I do want to get that's one ofmy goals for 2026, is to be a
little bit more consistent aboutgetting episodes out or at least
planning my breaks, where I say,hey, there won't be a next
episode on its normal cadence.
(34:21):
The next episode will be X datebecause I'm taking a break
rather than just disappearingoff the face of the earth.
But things happen.
SPEAKER_00 (34:27):
Totally, absolutely happen.
I think it sounds like you'vegot a healthy relationship to
what you're doing here too,which the thing that I think is
dangerous about these kinds ofthings that we do is that you
end up feeling resentful if youare on the hook.
There can be a good way to feellike on the hook to deliver
something.
And if it's perpetual, you canhit a point where you feel like
(34:51):
I'm just not in this anymore,but people still want it and I
must do it or something.
And that's, I think, a dangerthat I face that I have to watch
out for.
Because I can overextend myselfbecause I want to be able to
deliver the thing people want orsomething like that.
And so I think it's reallyimportant, especially with those
long-term recurring things thatwe're putting out to notice that
(35:15):
when it's happening.
SPEAKER_01 (35:17):
The last question is always my favorite.
It's what's something cool, new,or interesting, learned, built,
discovered, doesn't have to becoding related, totally can be,
can be coding adjacent.
What do you have for cool, new,or interesting?
SPEAKER_00 (35:32):
Yeah, I was thinking about this.
And if you had told me two yearsago that I would be using LLMs a
ton, I would have said, yeah,that makes sense.
But if you told me two years agothat I would be talking to my
computer as much as I am rightnow, that I would have been
really surprised by.
And so I've been usingWhisperflow, and I know people
(35:53):
are using that.
And there are a few other toolspeople are using.
I feel like Monologues one, Ithink.
Yeah, monologue's a prettypopular one.
From every.
And yeah, so that's been like areal game changer, I guess, in
some ways.
Like I finally decided to payfor a subscription to that
because I tried a few differenttools and it felt like
(36:15):
Whisperflow was it just fit mebest, or whatever.
And it's really weird because Iwant to say probably around 2018
or 2019, long before I waspodcasting, or it was like a
period of my life where I wasdoing tons of Rails development
work, but I rarely had anyconversations with my clients
(36:38):
other than emails or yeah,mainly just email.
I wasn't podcasting, I wasn'ttalking to, I didn't really have
a lot of Ruby or Rails friends.
And so I noticed when I startedto do more content type stuff
and podcasting that there was aperiod where it felt like I
didn't even know how to talk.
(36:59):
Like I don't even know if I canexplain it, but I didn't know
how to talk because I spent somuch time either thinking or
just typing or just writing, butnot just like off the cuff
speaking.
And maybe because of that, I'mmuch more comfortable now
talking to my computer when itcomes to like, okay, Claude,
(37:20):
here's what's going on, here'sthe thing I'm working on.
I need to be able to do this.
And so, like, that's been soweird to make that shift from
writing, writing specs out tolike just speaking.
I think the the thing that'samazing is how it can use the
context to know when I'm talkingabout a class or a module or a
(37:42):
method, or get pretty close on alot of those things.
Because that seemed like thething that would never work
about it is you're referencingso many class names or method
names, and you'd have to just goback and fix all of those.
But it gets it right enough thatit doesn't block me too much or
(38:02):
doesn't block the flow.
That's been really cool.
Yeah, so I'm using that quite abit.
And then I've discovered that Iam also using it more in my
note-taking app.
So now that I've got it, nowthat I'm like talking to my
computer more, talking to CloudCode, I'm also just talking into
(38:24):
Bear, my Markdown note-takingapp.
As I'm working on any givenproject, I'm often summarizing
for myself, like, okay, at thispoint, I've got this part done
and I'm struggling to decide howto approach this next piece.
And I'm just like saying thisout loud and putting this in
this.
(38:44):
I usually have one big note forevery major project or feature
that I'm building.
And so this note can get reallylong, but it summarizes
everything that I've beenworking on.
And I can go back by day andfigure out, oh, this is what I
was working on in previous daysor whatever.
And now I'm just like doingthese summaries now with
(39:06):
Whisperflow as well.
And that also is really helpful.
But it's such a dramatic shiftfrom what I was doing five years
ago.
SPEAKER_01 (39:15):
Yeah, AI definitely flipped our jobs in so many ways
on their head.
Like, I still feel like if youboil down when I first started
programming professionally and Ihad to explain what I did, I
feel like that explanation isn'ttoo different anymore.
Like I'm still problem solving.
I'm still like taking a complexfeature and I'm breaking it down
(39:38):
into like executable bits andlike then developing an
architecture and yada yada forthe code itself.
The biggest shift has been likeI type the code a lot less.
In some ways, it's like I wentfrom using a manual hammer to
like a nail gun.
You still have to know how tobuild a house correctly, or the
(40:00):
nail gun's not going to do youany good.
Like I feel like AI, if youdon't use AI well, garbage in,
garbage out, you get crap codefrom it, and you're just like,
this is useless.
You suck.
Um then it goes, you'reabsolutely right.
But yeah, like learning how touse those tools is the way that
(40:21):
we get to continue to do whatour jobs were, but it is so
different.
Yeah, I do miss writing straightout writing code.
I just feel like I don't do itanymore.
I do like to tweak something,I'm like, I'm not gonna use an
LLM to like tweak this method orsomething, but like I really
don't have to write out syntaxmuch anymore.
(40:43):
I have to like read the codethat AI wrote and make sure it's
not, yeah.
I've called it out, been like,this is overly complex.
And it's like, you're absolutelyright, too complex, and like we
trim it down, but yeah, writingcode, it always was way less of
my job than I thought it wouldbe when I was in school.
And it's like borderlinenon-existent now.
(41:06):
It's crazy.
SPEAKER_00 (41:08):
I think there are some cases maybe where I'm
writing there's a part of aclient app or a way their
architecture is that is overlycomplex and has a lot of
indirection.
And I was trying to reimaginewhat it would look like if I
simplified it.
It was easier for me to just tryto take a fresh sheet of paper
(41:31):
and do that myself for one classand then try to explain all of
that.
Maybe I guess I could try it to.
Other way as well and tell CloudCode exactly what I was
thinking.
But I felt like I needed to feelit myself.
I wouldn't be able to get to thearchitecture by looking at the
rest of the app.
One thing that's Cloud's greatat is looking at everything else
(41:54):
in your app and building thesame way.
But if you're not happy with theway it's built, what do you do?
You could certainly dorefactoring, but it seems like
there's a like a tendency towardreverting toward whatever is in
the code base as it currentlystands.
And if you want a new pattern,you might have to be pressing
harder to make that happen.
(42:15):
But yeah, a lot of it is justtalking.
And then, you know, likeyesterday saying, hey, I need
you to add a validation toensure that the started at
timestamp is in the future.
And then it wanted to do acustom validation.
I'm like, well, you can use acomparison.
You know, there's a built-invalidate comparison.
(42:35):
You don't have to do this.
So it was trying to do customvalidations a bunch.
And I'm like, nah, that's notthe way I want.
I know there's another way to dothis.
And it's But if you didn't knowthat, if you didn't know that,
you would just accept whateverthe AI spit out.
And that's where that ends upbeing the job.
You can't give the horse itshead.
Like I'm always thinking aboutthis being like, all right, we
used to have like hand-drawncarts, and now we have horses.
(42:56):
We figured out how to hookhorses up to our carts, but that
means now I've got to hold thereins and I've got to learn not
to give this horse like its headto go wherever it wants to go.
No, we're not going off into theforest.
You've got to stay on the road.
We're going this way.
No, we can't stop at the streamto drink right now.
You need to keep going orwhatever it is.
You know, like we gotta maintainit's not under our own power
(43:19):
anymore, but you're stilldirecting.
And you can't just give it itshead and let it go wherever it
wants.
SPEAKER_01 (43:24):
It needs to Yeah, you still have to know your
shit.
If you know nothing aboutprogramming, about web
development, about how HTTPworks, you can talk to an LLM
and maybe get some goodinformation, but LLMs
hallucinate.
These tools aren't perfect.
Like you just said, like it wastrying to do custom validation,
which is a totally validsolution in some cases.
(43:48):
But in that case, like there wasa better solution.
That's where it's like when youwere talking about are people
gonna want dev content now thatwe're using LLMs and stuff?
And I would argue yes, the smartpeople will, because like you
still have to know how to dothis stuff.
Sure, you can build a whole SaaSproject in a week now with LLMs.
Can you maintain it for fiveyears?
(44:10):
Maybe you just let AI just doits thing all the time.
It won't matter if it'smaintainable.
Maybe we'll see in five years.
There's a group of people thatsay that, and I'm definitely not
there yet.
No, I think that it's stillsuper important to like enforce
boundaries with architecture,with the code it writes, with
(44:34):
the manner in which consistencyis done.
I think Ruby on Rails, havingthe convention over
configuration, makes it reallygood for AIs to write Rails code
because there are theseguardrails.
You do it this way.
And as long as you know whatyou're doing or what it should
at least look like or feel like,you can use AI to get stuff out
(44:58):
very quickly.
You just have to make sure thatyou're not just blindly going,
yep, do whatever you want.
Yep, do whatever you want, yep,do whatever you want.
Here's a PR.
And then we'll have a differentAI agent review that PR and then
merge it.
And we'll never actually look atthe code and hope to God it
works.
Come on now.
I don't know.
AI changes so quickly, I couldbe very wrong.
And in like a year, we could behaving a completely different
(45:20):
conversation about our jobs, butit just feels like the best code
that AI is writing is the codethat's very much guided along.
That's in my experience.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (45:32):
Yeah.
That's where I'm at.
I think I was blown away thissummer when I had a couple
friends of mine that I'm in agroup chat with that were like,
you gotta try cloud code.
And I was like, all right, I'lltry it.
And then it was like, oh, okay,okay.
And then it was like periods inthe fall where I was like, oh
man, I don't know what's gonnahappen here.
Man, I don't know.
And I think at the end of theyear, I was finally like, all
(45:54):
right, I'm happy with this.
I think this is a net positive.
I don't want to go back theprevious way.
There are some things that werereally nice about that, but I'll
tell you, there are days whereI'm like, where in the past, if
I was hitting a mentalexhaustion and I was just like,
I can't get my brain to gothere.
I can't think.
(46:14):
Now I can just keep talking.
All right, I don't know the bestway to do this.
Instead, I'd be like thinkingabout like, how do I solve this
problem?
Or I don't, I'm stuck.
Now I can just talk my way outof it or say, like, give me a
solution.
And then I can say, no, notthat.
That's not it.
That's not it.
It's much easier to be in thatmode, you know, like the edit
(46:36):
mode than in the raw creationmode.
It takes a certain level ofenergy or a certain kind of
focus.
And if there are times I don'thave that, there are.
There are times that I don'thave that.
And in the past, I would havejust pushed through and probably
not been very productive.
And now I can just say, like,all right, have at it.
I'm just explaining it, and thenI'll tell you why I don't like
(46:58):
your idea.
But it'll probably get meunblocked.
SPEAKER_01 (47:01):
Yeah.
Something I used to do was likewrite everything a few different
ways because I didn't knowexactly how I wanted it laid
out, or like I get halfwaythrough and be like, oh, you
know what?
I made the wrong decision in thebeginning.
Let me start from scratch.
Like I try not to tie myself tomy code too much.
That way I gave the best versionof it after seeing a couple of
different solutions for biggerthings, obviously, but like so
(47:24):
much easier with AI to just belike, let's write it this way.
Okay, stash that or justcompletely get rid of it.
New context.
Same goal, same feature,different prompt, different way
of explaining what I want andsee what that looks like.
Sometimes just running theprompt twice, that kind of
experimentation helps too.
(47:45):
Cause then, like you can tellClaude to like remember things
it learned by like updating itsown file.
That's really helpful too.
Where it's like, we went throughall these iterations, and this
is the solution, and here's whythis works.
Now update your memory so thatnext time I ask you, we don't
have to go through nineiterations.
Like, it's sort of like workingwith a junior at times.
(48:06):
I'm leveling you up, but itneeds those guardrails, and you
are the guardrails.
SPEAKER_00 (48:11):
There's a nice part about that, what you were
saying, like being able to do itmultiple ways.
There's this idea of thediverge, converge phases of any
project, and diverge is whereyou're trying to produce a bunch
of concepts for something.
Like you're building a feature,and maybe you have a first
(48:32):
concept of what that feature isgoing to look like, how it's
going to function, but yourfirst idea for it might not be
the best one.
Same with implementation.
Your first idea for how youmight implement it might not be
the best one.
So diverge is like, let's try abunch of options.
And then once we see them, wecan converge back to the final.
But that can be an expensivething.
So people often do it in designphases.
(48:54):
Like for visual design, youmight do this.
All right, we're rebranding oursite or our app or whatever.
We're going to do try threedifferent flavors or whatever.
You might also do thatarchitecturally or with a
feature now.
And it's much less expensive todo the diverge stage now because
you can just throw an LLM at it.
Even if you did one of themyourself, you could let LLMs do
(49:16):
two more at very low cost andvery low time commitment.
And then converge once you'vegot like those laid out.
Like, actually, that's the onewe want.
Or it's going to be acombination of A and B.
Then you've probably done betterthan if you just tried one thing
itself.
Sometimes you know, butsometimes you don't.
And it's really helpful to seethe options.
SPEAKER_01 (49:36):
Yep.
It's a nail gun.
You still got to know how tobuild the house.
The nail gun just helps you doit faster once you know what
you're doing.
That may be a naive way oflooking at AI.
Maybe I'm not being bullishenough on it, but it's that's
been my experience.
Like I've definitely adopted itmore.
We started using it at work.
(49:58):
Like we spent all of Novemberlike really trying it, really
making sure that we were usingit in our projects, even if it
slowed us down to like get usedto it.
Like a concerted effort thathelped me a lot be more
comfortable with it and see theadvantages of it.
But it also helped me realizelike it is just a tool.
It's probably the same waypeople like who were programming
(50:19):
with punch cards, and then wehad a compiler, were like, it's
stupid.
It could never replace us.
And then like they learn how touse it.
And they're like, oh, I stillhave a job here.
I still have a role here.
I still have a purpose here.
I guide the thing.
The compiler just helps us do itfaster.
Zip.
That's it.
Those are at least my crazy assthoughts.
SPEAKER_00 (50:40):
That's my feeling.
Like, I in the middle of thesummer, I thought, like, how
disruptive is this?
I don't know.
I think at this point, yes, it'svery disruptive, but I still
have work.
This is making me work moreproductive.
And it was harder to learnprogramming in general than
learn how to use cloud code.
(51:00):
I've picked these things up.
And you know, I may not be thebest at it, but I've already
adopted them into my workflow.
My workflow has changeddramatically, but I'm still
doing my job.
And I'm happy about that.
For Blue Ridge, are you stilllooking for volunteers?
I forgot to ask that.
Yeah.
Um thing that's important withvolunteers is figuring out like
(51:22):
all the sort of roles that youneed filled.
Because often you can have a lotof people that are interested,
but you need to kind of knowahead of time like, here are the
things that need to be done thatI can sort of hand off to
volunteers.
I do need to sit down and planthose out.
But yes, I'm looking forvolunteers.
We're still looking forsponsors.
Obviously, CFP's open, so thespeakers.
(51:44):
Yeah, so all of it's wide open.
I will be probably doing like avolunteer kickoff meeting in the
next couple weeks to just sayhello to everybody that wants to
help and sort of divvy out someresponsibilities.
And some of those will happenprior to the conference, and
then there'll be the ones thatare like specific to the
(52:05):
conference.
Because if you're helping withregistration, that's like a
thing that you do during theconference.
But you know, there might beother things that that we need
sort of earlier on.
So depending on what people havetime for.
SPEAKER_01 (52:16):
Okay, cool.
So if you're interested inspeaking, volunteering, or
sponsoring Blue Ridge Ruby, getin contact with you, or is there
a Blue Ridge Ruby Direct?
SPEAKER_00 (52:25):
Yeah, team at Blue RidgeRuby.com is great if you're
interested in volunteering.
If you are interested insponsoring, we have a sponsors
page and contact informationthere, and the CFP is on the
site as well.
So all of this there.
SPEAKER_01 (52:38):
Yeah, cool, man.
Anything else before we wrap itup that you want to talk about?
I think we think that's it.
Yeah.
Cool.
Looking forward to Blue RidgeRuby.
It's a great conference.
Asheville's an awesome place tohost something like that.
And the extracurriculars at theend are always good.
So definitely looking forward tothat.
(52:58):
And appreciate you coming backon the show and talking about
it.
And I'll definitely see you inApril.
Yeah, so Blue RidgeRuby.com,right, is the site.
You're on Blue Sky and X and allthe places.
Ruby Social and LinkedIn.
Yeah.
And now when I do LinkedIn,we're doing the socials.
(53:19):
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Everywhere on the socials.
Awesome.
Well, folks, I'll see you in thenext one.
Jeremy, thanks again for comingon.
We're looking forward to havingyou on again.
I appreciate it.
Yeah.
Look forward to seeing you soon.
Bye.
Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode
of Code and the Coding CodersWho Code It.
I'm your host, Drew Bragg, andI'm joined today by a repeat
coding coder, Jeremy Smith.
Jeremy, anyone who hasn'tlistened to your last episode or
is unfamiliar with you, pleasedo a quick introduction.
SPEAKER_00 (00:15):
Hey Drew, yeah.
Thanks for having me back.
I'm Jeremy Smith.
I am a product-focused Railsdeveloper.
I run a tiny one-person Railsstudio called Hybrid, and I do
the Indie Rails podcast with myfriend Jess.
And this is sort of new, but I'mgoing to be taking over
(00:38):
facilitating the RubyConsultants quarterly call with
Ruby Central, which I want toget more people involved in this
that are in the consultingspace.
So going to be helping outthere.
And I am a once in futureconference organizer with Blue
Ridge Ruby in Asheville, NorthCarolina.
SPEAKER_01 (00:57):
Yes, yes.
Excited for that.
And we're going to get into allof that in our show.
The way this is going to work isI'm going to ask Jeremy three
questions, ask him what he'sworking on.
Doesn't actually have to be workwork.
It can totally be like, hey, I'mputting on a conference style
work.
What kind of blockers he has,and what's something cool, new,
or interesting that he'slearned, discovered, built,
(01:18):
could be tools, could be books,could be anything.
Doesn't have to be codingrelated.
So we were going to talk aboutBlue Ridge on your what are you
working on, but I first want totalk about the call that you're
going to be running with RubyCentral.
Talk a little bit about that.
What's the call like?
Who's supposed to be there?
Things like that.
SPEAKER_00 (01:37):
Yeah, the reason I mentioned it, I keep trying to
mention it wherever I canbecause this is sort of a little
known kind of quarterly meetupon Zoom for agencies and
consultants, freelancers,anybody in kind of Ruby and
Rails that provides services.
And so it'll be agency owners orpeople within agencies coming on
(02:03):
the call.
It'll be independent contractorscoming on the call.
And we're talking about all thethings related to our service
work inside of the Ruby Railsecosystem.
You can get a lot of informationabout sort of the industry in
general.
But if you want to know Rubyspecific stuff, this is like one
of the best places to go to kindof share what's going on.
(02:26):
What are we seeing in the Rubyspace right now?
Where are people finding successwith leads?
What are the challenges peopleare facing right now in the
market, in our particularmarket?
There's really just nowhere elseto get that than this call.
And quarterly ends up being apretty decent cadence, I think,
for kind of sticking your headup and kind of talking around to
(02:50):
other folks in the same areaabout what's going on.
And that's been really helpful.
And it's been really nicebecause we all have our business
struggles.
And when you're able to raise,you know, an issue in that group
and have multiple people say,Yeah, we have the same thing.
Yes, we're going through that aswell.
(03:10):
Yes, we've also seen that.
It's really helpful.
It's really nice.
And maybe in some senses itwould be like we're competitors,
maybe, but not really.
And it feels more like a bunchof people rooting for each other
since we're all doing the samekind of work.
So typical Ruby community stuff.
Yeah, yeah.
I love to see it.
You know, I don't know if youknow what other communities and
(03:32):
languages have this kind ofthing, but it feels very much
Ruby to me.
SPEAKER_01 (03:37):
For sure.
Sounds like it.
SPEAKER_00 (03:39):
That's awesome.
Congrats, I think.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Yeah.
I think for a while they weretrying to decide like there
wasn't really a person to go toto facilitate it.
And maybe the people thatoriginally suggested starting it
didn't know what to do with itor left.
And then they were like, whatare we doing with this thing?
And I keep saying, Oh, I'mloving this.
(03:59):
This is good for me.
Like, I want more of this.
I want more people to come.
SPEAKER_01 (04:03):
So what we were actually going to talk about on
the what are you working on wasyour back to helping to run,
organize, do all the things,make the magic happen that is
Blue Ridge Ruby.
So for anyone who doesn't knowabout Blue Ridge Ruby, hasn't
been to one in the past, doesn'tsee all of your posts about it,
(04:23):
recently talk a little bit aboutBlue Ridge Ruby.
SPEAKER_00 (04:26):
Yeah.
Back in 2022, thispost-pandemic, I started going
to a lot of Ruby and Railsconferences.
And it was a big shift for me ininvesting more in being involved
in the community and in showingup in those places where people
are meeting together in person.
(04:47):
And that had a huge impact on methat year.
And toward the end of the year,I thought, man, I'd love to put
on a conference of my own.
That's that would be amazing.
I was really nervous to try topull that off on my own, but
knew a guy in Asheville whoreached out and said, Hey, I'll
help you.
And that turned out to be Mark,one of my co-organizers.
And so the two of us kicked offBlue Ridge Ruby in Asheville in
(05:11):
2023.
And it was one of the scariestthings that I did, and also one
of the things I'm most happyabout.
It's hard to explain why it hadsuch an impact on me, but when
you get over 100 people togetherand create an experience where
(05:35):
they're all contributing to ittogether and having a great
time, it was just amazing.
It was an amazing experience,amazing feeling to have like
maybe created the container forsomething really good to happen.
And I keep telling people itreminds me of that parable of
stone soup.
I don't know if you've everheard this parable before.
(05:56):
Okay.
So when I was a kid, we had thisbook, and it's like the story of
stone soup.
And this guy who is reallyhungry goes to a town and he's
begging for food, but nobodywants to give him anything.
So he gets this idea and hefinds an old pot and he fills it
with water and he starts a fireand he starts cooking and people
(06:17):
start walking by and they'resaying, What are you making?
And he said, Well, I've makingstone soup.
He has a stone in the pot andthe water is cooking.
And they're like, Oh, that'sinteresting.
And he's like, Yeah, well, itwould be really good if what
this really needs is somecarrots.
And so someone's like, Oh, I gotsome carrots back at home.
So they run out, get thecarrots, bring them back.
They put those in the pot.
Oh, this is smelling reallygood.
(06:38):
Some other people come by,they're like, Oh, what are you
making?
I'm making stone soup.
Yeah, yeah, it would really begood if I added some potatoes.
So, oh, we got some potatoesthat run, get the potatoes, come
back.
And this goes on and on.
You got the onions and then themeat or whatever.
And eventually he's got like awhole stew.
And at the end, it feeds him andeverybody else.
And there's a savvy to that.
(07:01):
And uh something I love aboutthat is that this guy didn't
like contribute really anythingexcept the container.
Like everybody else brought thethings, the things that actually
made it nourishing, but he hadthe concept and he set the
vision for it and invited peopleinto what became this amazing
(07:21):
stew.
And so I think about that withlots of things, but particularly
with conferences, because it'sinviting lots of different
people to contribute the thingsthat they have, whether it's
speakers or sponsors,volunteers, scholars, just
people that are friends coming,bring somebody maybe new into
the industry, and everybody'scontributing their piece.
(07:43):
And then all together, it likemakes this really wonderful,
like nourishing thing.
But somebody has to make thecontainer.
Someone just has to be like, putthis pot down, throw some stones
and water in it, and say, ooh,this smells really good.
You know what this needs?
And it's kind of magical.
SPEAKER_01 (08:00):
Yeah.
The first Blue Ridge wasawesome.
Still one of my favoriteconferences that I've been to.
It had a special energy to it.
I've been to a lot ofconferences that have a similar
energy.
And I feel like the consistencythere is twofold.
It's an organizer who reallycares about putting on a great
conference, and it's a smallconference.
(08:23):
No shade for Rails World orRubyCon for a big conference.
Those are special in their ownway, but there's something about
those smaller where you get tomeet everybody, talk to
everybody.
Especially Blue Ridge was thefirst one that I had gone to
where you had that open lunchconcept where instead of like
you're sitting in this gianthall and there's some food there
(08:45):
and you stand in line for it,and then you sit at a table with
maybe eight people.
If you're lucky, you go out intothe city you're at and meet with
giant groups, and like you can'twalk past a restaurant without
being like, hey, look, there'ssome Rubyists in there.
And that was so cool.
And yeah, Blue Ridge was great,and I'm super excited to see you
back at it, organizing it andgetting it going.
(09:06):
The new space looks super cool.
The original space was awesome.
The new one looks like it canhold a few more people.
SPEAKER_00 (09:57):
It is smaller.
It's old, 207 people seated.
The previous space, I think itwas maybe around 300, 350, I
want to say.
And I loved that space.
The theater we were inoriginally was just gorgeous.
I fell in love with it.
They do weddings there becauseit's just like a beautiful
space.
But there were accessibilityissues with that building that I
(10:21):
didn't feel comfortable using itagain.
And so I decided to do a searchfor something else.
And the WaiMai Cultural Centercame up.
It was actually just recentlyrenovated.
They've done a really nice jobwith the space.
I think it's going to be great.
And it has a lot of uniquehistory to it.
So I'm excited about that.
They also have like a streetlevel space that is somewhat
(10:44):
separate from the auditoriumthat I'm planning to set up for
like hangout space.
And so I'm pretty excited aboutthat.
I think it's going to come outwell.
It may be that this ends upbeing like a long-term space for
us.
We'll see because the venue endsup being like just so
challenging.
Like you're trying to designeverything else around the
spaces that you have, and itdetermines your capacity and so
(11:09):
many other things.
So if it works out well, we mayend up using them in the future.
Also, venue is one of thebiggest costs.
I think video production mightbe the biggest, but then venue
is like usually right afterthat, or they might be tied for
first or something.
(11:30):
So that's significant.
And at least this year, it'spretty reasonable.
So I'm happy about that.
And I'm hoping I want to see ifI can pack it out.
If I can get 207 people seatedin that space, I think it'd be
great.
So that's what I'm hoping for.
And that was really the firstthing was figuring out space
because you can't do anythingelse until you know the time and
(11:54):
place for something.
You can't invite sponsorsbecause you've got nothing to go
on.
You can't sell tickets becausepeople don't know when it even
is.
You got to tell me, give me somedates here.
You know, like there's so manyother things.
So it all hangs on that as thefirst piece.
So getting that nailed down in,I think it was end of November
was great.
And then that really got usrolling.
(12:16):
CFPs are open or open soon.
They're open until February 3rd.
We are a Ruby conference, so notnecessarily a Rails conference.
Blue Ridge is more broadly Ruby.
Probably have some one or twotalks related to Rails, and most
people there will be probablyworking in Rails day to day, but
(12:37):
the focus is Ruby, but reallypretty general within Ruby.
Really want to have a broad mixof topics and speakers.
Yesterday I released a videowhere I talked about our CFP
process and my sort of generaladvice on doing talk
submissions.
(12:58):
And it ended up being like 30minutes.
I didn't need to go on and on.
I didn't realize I had so muchto say about it.
Actually, what who it was, itwas Adrian Marinhee was like,
hey, you need to make morevideos as you like work on Blue
Ridge just to share what you'redoing.
So I was like, okay, I'll starta behind the scenes kind of
thing.
And my first one was like theCFP process and my advice for
(13:20):
people with sending talks toeither our conference or other
conferences, other Rubyconferences.
And so I'm hoping that'shelpful.
And for folks that areinterested, please, this is the
time to be writing talkproposals.
There's so many CFPs open rightnow.
A few of them, RBQ conf isclosing.
He extended it one more day.
I think it's closing tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01 (13:40):
That'll be January 8th.
By the time this goes out,that'll be closed.
That would be closed.
SPEAKER_00 (13:45):
There are some at the end of January, I want to
say, but check Rubyevents.organd there's a CFP page and you
can see all the upcoming ones.
But right now is the time to gettalks out there.
SPEAKER_01 (13:57):
Biggest advice I have for people when it comes to
CFPs is like don't wait for theacceptance to start fleshing out
the talk too.
Like I used to be very muchteam, submit the CFP and then
write the talk if you'reaccepted.
But like usually you're acceptedand it's like you have so little
time.
It feels like a lot of time, butyeah, get out to go do like
(14:20):
version one at a meetupvirtually or in your town or
something to get some reps in,especially if you're new to
speaking, like it's completelydifferent when you're actually
in front of people giving thetalk.
Get the CFPs submitted and workon the talk.
SPEAKER_00 (14:39):
I always time track everything.
So it usually takes me around 50hours to put a talk together.
And if that's my one thing I'mdoing during that period, I can
probably throw 10 hours a weekat something.
So I'm like five weeks is myminimum to put a talk together.
But even that is kind of pushingit.
So I'd rather have two months toget a talk together and feel
(15:01):
like I was gonna do a good jobwhen I came time to give it.
SPEAKER_01 (15:05):
So no tracks per se for Blue Ridge Ruby, just a
single Ruby in general.
SPEAKER_00 (15:11):
Single track and no themes this year.
Kind of like just having it kindof open like that.
And we have 10 talk slots.
So it's gonna be a challenge forus to really whittle that down
and create a program that hassomething for everybody.
But that is part of the funtrying to figure that out.
SPEAKER_01 (15:31):
Going through CFPs is a daunting task.
It really is.
SPEAKER_00 (15:35):
Like it's practically like a week of work
the week that it drops becausepeople submit their proposals
and then you have to hit theground running because you need
to get an announcement outprobably the next week.
So that week after February 3rdor that week, it's gonna be a
ton of work, just reading lotsof proposals and making lots of
(15:55):
decisions, and then sending lotsof messages to people, giving
them updates on where theirproposal stands.
SPEAKER_01 (16:03):
I'm sure you're gonna get a ton of good ones.
I remember doing the CFPs forthe last Rails Conf, and it was
just like, I want to see so manyof these talks, and we have so
few slots to put them in.
And it was like we had to givesome no's where I just wanted to
be like, can we write them likea very detailed, like your talk
sounds freaking awesome, but wedon't have enough space for
(16:25):
everyone's talk.
We're so sorry.
(17:22):
It was just like, man, I hopeplease, please submit it to like
everywhere else and let me knowwhere accepted because I want to
see this talk.
SPEAKER_00 (17:30):
That was part of my advice actually in the video I
just made, which is like, thisis a numbers game.
And so submit more talkproposals and submit to more
conferences.
So many times, it's not that wewould never use your proposal if
it's a no.
It's like, wow, we had so manygood ones.
I would love to see this thenext year, or I'd love to see
this in another conference.
(17:51):
Maybe it needs a few tweaks andit would be great.
But it's rarely like, nah, thisis no good.
You know, it's almost neverthat.
When people can, if you put afew hours into a talk proposal,
get it out to as manyconferences as you can.
SPEAKER_01 (18:05):
Meetups too.
Meetups are always looking forpeople to do speakers.
You have an idea for a CFP, butmaybe you don't know how to make
it a 30-minute, 45-minute talk.
Start with that 10-minute talkthat you give at a meetup.
And then as people fieldquestions, you build your talk
from there.
And then when you feel like youhave 30 minutes of content, you
submit it to a conference.
(18:27):
So there's a lot of stages togetting to be able to talk, talk
about whatever you want otherpeople to learn.
But yeah, that's cool thatyou're doing the behind the
scenes videos on everythinggoing on with Blue Ridge,
because it's still a mystery tome.
Like, even getting involved withsome of the ones in the past,
I'm still like, oh, I would havenever thought about that.
(18:50):
It makes total sense now that Iknow it.
SPEAKER_00 (18:51):
But there are a lot of things like that.
So even things like, all right,just this morning, I'm looking
through Asheville trying to findlike cool or interesting like
foods that are made in the town.
Part of what I think is greatabout regional conferences is
that you get a flavor for thisplace that you're visiting.
(19:12):
And Asheville has a really coolculture.
It's pretty granola.
There's a lot of like outdoorsypeople, a lot of hippie people.
And so I was like, found thisreally good pizza.
Yeah, mountain towns have goodpizza.
I don't know what this is, but Ifound like this guy that makes
artisanal pickles.
And I was like, hey, maybe Ishould do like a pickle bar, you
(19:35):
know.
So I'm just like looking atrandom things like that.
Like, why are you doing this?
Well, I want to give theexperience of please don't quote
me on the pickle bar.
I don't know if I'm gonna dothat.
But it's just like I'm lookingat these things like listen, if
I get to Blue Ridge and there'sno pickle bar, I'm gonna be
pissed.
I know, right?
But sometimes, like, okay, youhave like a sponsor who's like,
hey, um, would love to beinvolved somehow.
(19:57):
Are there any specialopportunities that we could work
out?
And then I'm thinking, like,well, what could we do that
would be interesting?
What would be unique that youhaven't seen in another
conference that people wouldtalk about later?
They would be like, Oh, this isamazing.
The first year we did the icecream sandwich truck that came
after the conference.
SPEAKER_01 (20:14):
That was super cool.
SPEAKER_00 (20:15):
I love that.
That was so great.
I mean, I didn't get to go downand do it.
I was busy like cleaning upafter the conference, but I did
get to look, peek down from thethird story window at everybody
down below, you know, gettingtheir ice cream sandwiches, and
that was pretty awesome.
So just like cool things likethat helps an event stand out in
your mind from every other eventthat you go to.
(20:37):
Oh, that was the one where wedid blah, blah, blah.
That matters.
And when we can do that alongwith sponsors who are looking
for something unique tocontribute to, I think that can
be great.
So I ended up on all theserandom rabbit trails, you know,
trying to figure out like whatwould be interesting, what would
be cool, and then these researchprojects that you never would
(20:58):
have expected you'd be doingjust because trying to create
these unique experiences.
Is that like a bit of a blocker?
SPEAKER_01 (21:06):
You live close enough that you're familiar with
the area, and then you're like,how do I give someone a taste of
this area that I know well inalmost a familiar way?
Like, I feel like if I'm veryfamiliar with something, it's
almost hard to give people anintro to it where I feel like
you're getting the vibe of thething that I'm trying to show
(21:29):
you without being overwhelmed.
Because if I'm very familiar,I'm like, I know all the things.
SPEAKER_00 (21:35):
I think the fact that I live that idea.
I think the fact that I live anhour away.
Way helps actually in this casebecause I know the stuff that
people would want to go toAsheville for rather than living
there and being like, oh, I'm soover this thing because all the
tourists come here for that.
So I think that absolutelyhappens.
You get like blind to what'sunique about the place that you
(21:57):
live.
But people that come to yourtown, fly or drive, spend the
weekend in your town.
And Asheville is a very popularholiday destination, weekend
destination, that kind of thing.
They're coming for particularthings.
They're coming for the BlueRidge Parkway, for the hiking,
for you know, all the outdooractivities, for the
microbreweries, for the foodscene, for the music scene.
(22:19):
There's a certain sort ofgranola, hippie aesthetic that's
there that is the outside flavorof Asheville.
Well, that's really only onepart of Asheville.
There's tons of other things,you know, that aren't hippie
granola.
That's the reality of everyplace.
But when people associate aplace in their minds, they kind
(22:43):
of want that experience, thesort of first pass experience of
that place.
And I think like DetroitRailscoff did a good job of
playing up Detroit, for example.
But people that are from Detroitmight be annoyed, you know, like
at some point, like, I don'twant more Detroit-style pizza or
any references to Motownanymore.
You know, like, yes, I get it.
Like, it's cliche now for us.
(23:04):
But for the yeah, for them, yougotta give them the cliche.
You know, you gotta give themthe thing that they have the
association with.
SPEAKER_01 (23:12):
Yeah, when everybody came to RailsConf in Philly,
like you had to go get acheesesteak.
Oh, right.
Yeah, absolutely.
You don't come to Philadelphiaand not get a cheesesteak unless
you live here and you've had somany cheesesteaks you don't want
to open it one ever again.
Um, but that only happens if youdon't go to Shays.
So, what kind of blockers do youhave, either work-wise or
(23:34):
related to the conference thatyou want to talk about?
SPEAKER_00 (23:37):
This is kind of a different direction, but Blue
Ridge ended up being the thingthat unblocked me to for one of
my blockers, which is I've cometo realize more and more that
I'm the kind of person thatalways needs something going on
the side, pretty much all thetime.
Either I'm deciding on the nextweird thing that I'm gonna do on
(23:59):
the side, or I'm doing it, orI'm like recovering from it and
getting ready to do the nextone.
And it's kind of like endlessfor me.
Like, and in the past, I used tofeel bad about it, like guilty
that I always need something tomake life chaotic or stressing
myself out.
I've come to accept that it'sjust like part of my nature that
(24:20):
I always need some project.
And the last time I was on CodeEncoders, it was when I was
building Liminal, and that wasmy big thing.
And this was like a little overa year ago.
And that was a really funproject, and it didn't quite
materialize the way I had hoped,but I did have a lot of fun
building it and had a lot ofgreat connections to people who
(24:46):
were interested in how I wasgoing about development, my
product choices, and all thestuff that I was sharing about
it.
That was actually one of the bigtakeaways from building this app
was a lot of the people thatwere most interested in hearing
from me wasn't necessarily aboutmy fresh take on old school
(25:07):
forums.
It was how I was thinking aboutbuilding products and how I was
building with Rails.
And after that project, it sortof dawned on me that that was
like who was already payingattention to me, other Rails
developers and product focusedpeople, and that I really
(25:28):
enjoyed making videos andcontent for them.
And so this past year, I changedsome things around in the spring
to kind of open up some time soI could work on a new project
related to content that I washoping to really get off the
ground in 2025.
And for a number of personalreasons, I wasn't able to pull
(25:52):
that off.
And it was really frustratingme.
It was a combination of likeneeding a good amount of time
and energy to put in this newventure, but also realizing like
I didn't know if I had what ittook to pull it off because
there was no sort of upperbounds on the time it might
take.
(26:12):
And for me, like if I go toolong without having this other
side thing like that I'm workingtoward, it gets kind of
depressing, or like I sort oflose motivation.
I kind of need a thing that I'mgoing for.
The thing is, like, I still lovemy day-to-day work.
I love working with my clients,I love building products, I love
(26:33):
using Rails every day.
But there's something abouthaving some discretionary time
that I put toward some biggergoal, some other thing that I
have like complete control over.
Maybe not complete, but a lot ofcontrol over that always makes
me feel alive, feel excited,energized, all that.
(26:54):
And so this other project that Iwas hoping to pull off,
content-wise, because of thetime commitments and because of
also the changes with AI, Istarted to feel like will people
like be as interested in Rubyand Rails related content now?
And I started seeing people talkabout that.
Like Nate Burkapec had saidsomething yeah, a while back
(27:17):
about this that maybe no one'sgonna even care to buy like
dev-related content, or youknow, if we can just ask LLMs
for everything, like maybe itdoesn't matter anymore.
So I've been like concernedabout that.
So I needed something that waslike exciting to look forward
to, something to put this extraenergy into, but that had like a
(27:41):
clear outcome and a upper boundsto it.
And that brought me back aroundto Blue Ridge.
And that's really kind of whereI landed.
Blue Ridge ended up being a wayto unblock myself on having sort
of a next thing to work on thatwas exciting to look forward to.
And I don't know why I needsomething stressful to keep me
(28:03):
like excited, but there's someelement of risk.
I need something risky.
I can't risk my client work.
I can't risk my day-to-day work,but I need something that feels
like risky, where there's somechance of not succeeding that
gets me excited and feels likean adventure.
I guess maybe that's the way tosay it.
(28:24):
And with this other project, itwas too risky, maybe for where
it was too much unknown, and Ineeded something slightly less
risky to go after now.
And with a conference, there'snot like a real big blocker,
it's just lots of details, justlots of details and lots of
(28:46):
effort.
But it's doable and there's alimit to it.
By May 2nd, when the conferenceis over, it's pretty much done.
Not entirely because videoproduction is still being done,
but basically done at thatpoint.
And so there is an end.
SPEAKER_01 (29:01):
And there's a moment in time for it.
SPEAKER_00 (29:03):
Yeah.
And I also know because I timetrack things, that took me 250
hours of in 2023 to put on theconference.
And I think I can probably do itin less.
I'm aiming toward 200 hoursbetween now and April 30th.
So I think that also lets meknow like I've got a reasonable
idea of how much time I'mputting into this.
And yeah, it's a lot of time,but it's doable.
(29:25):
I can make this happen.
But it's still that enough riskthat feels like adventurous to
me.
SPEAKER_01 (29:33):
That makes sense.
That's a cool way to unblockyourself going and running a
conference.
Not, I think, one of the waysthat someone's ever mentioned
they unblocked themselvesbefore.
Like, I was feeling blocked, soI ran a conference.
But I like it.
You're very self-aware too, oflike, I need something going on.
(29:53):
I need, I hate being stressed bysomething, but at the same time,
if I'm not a little stressedabout it, there's a good chance
that I'm not actively workingtowards it.
Even when it comes to likeprogramming books, hey, you can
do these steps, and I like I getreally engaged for the first few
chapters, and I'm like, there'sno risk here.
(30:14):
Like, if I just put the bookback on the shelf, no one knows,
no one cares.
Yeah, there's gotta be a littlebit of stress.
There's gotta be a little bit offight or flight feeling for me
to be like, all right, I gottafucking do this thing.
I gotta like, you know, works,got deadlines, works.
If I don't do it, my projectpartner's gonna call me out, you
know, my boss is gonna call meout.
(30:35):
Okay, that helps me get my workdone.
I still enjoy what I do, whichis why I do it, but the little
bit of stress helps.
That took me a really long timeto figure out.
I feel like I was like in mymid-30s when I was finally like,
I need stress or I don'tfunction.
This is annoying.
SPEAKER_00 (30:54):
And I like my bulk rights.
There's a fine line between theright amount of stress and too
much, I think.
And sometimes we go overboard.
But I think especially when youcan pick the thing that you're
gonna be stressed about, itmakes a big difference.
There are plenty of things in mylife that are super stressful
that I did not pick, or I pickedthem so long ago that I don't
(31:17):
even remember.
But when I can pick a projectlike this and know, okay, I'm
gonna be stressed about this.
There are gonna be periods whereI'm gonna be losing my mind.
I'm so stressful, you know, I'mso stressed about this thing.
But in general, it's gonna be agood stress because there is an
upper limit to how much effortand energy and time I can put
(31:41):
into this thing.
There is a deadline, it willend, it won't go on in
perpetuity.
And at the end, there's like areal good outcome that I've seen
before.
And it may not be the same, andI could fail, and something
could go wrong, but probably ifI work hard enough and pay
attention to the details, I'llbe able to pull it off.
(32:01):
Probably it's gonna turn out,and I'm gonna be happy I did it.
And I may not be able to pull itoff the next year, but I commit
to this one at a time, you know.
Like I think some people expectthat with conferences that
should sort of be like endless.
You can always expect the nextone.
It's just on repeat orsomething.
And I've come to realize thatthe people that can pull that
(32:22):
off, that is pretty amazing andalso pretty rare.
And that really each timeorganizers commit to doing a
conference again, it's amonumental effort for them.
And taking it one at a time andmaking the commitment this time
and the excitement for that, andnot ever feeling the obligation
(32:44):
to have to continue somethingforever.
I don't know how you feel with apodcast, but I commit to a
podcast, and there's like asomewhat of a schedule grind
that you get into that meansyou're always on the hook in
some ways for putting contentout there.
And I think you can't quite dothat same kind of thing with a
(33:05):
conference, or maybe youshouldn't.
And maybe you shouldn't withpodcasting either.
I don't know.
But at least on my side withIndie Rails, it does feel more
doable, I guess, to say, allright, yeah, I can stay on the
hook for this.
SPEAKER_01 (33:16):
Yeah, I have zero pressure in my podcast.
If you haven't noticed, I thinkthe last episode came out in
November.
I took all of December offbecause I was losing my mind at
work.
And like the first missedepisode, I was like, oh my God,
like I can't miss another one.
This is horrible.
Like, people are expecting a newepisode.
And then I was like, but I'mstressed out.
(33:39):
I won't give a good episodebecause I'm stressed out.
And I'm like, I don't want to bedoing this right now.
I have so much work to get donebefore winter break starts,
yada, yada.
Like, no, you know what?
No, I podcast mostly, there's asplit.
It's mostly for me because Ienjoy talking to people.
And then I just record theconversation and put it out, and
that's my contribution to thecommunity.
(34:00):
But like, I don't owe that toanybody.
I do want to get that's one ofmy goals for 2026, is to be a
little bit more consistent aboutgetting episodes out or at least
planning my breaks, where I say,hey, there won't be a next
episode on its normal cadence.
(34:21):
The next episode will be X datebecause I'm taking a break
rather than just disappearingoff the face of the earth.
But things happen.
SPEAKER_00 (34:27):
Totally, absolutely happen.
I think it sounds like you'vegot a healthy relationship to
what you're doing here too,which the thing that I think is
dangerous about these kinds ofthings that we do is that you
end up feeling resentful if youare on the hook.
There can be a good way to feellike on the hook to deliver
something.
And if it's perpetual, you canhit a point where you feel like
(34:51):
I'm just not in this anymore,but people still want it and I
must do it or something.
And that's, I think, a dangerthat I face that I have to watch
out for.
Because I can overextend myselfbecause I want to be able to
deliver the thing people want orsomething like that.
And so I think it's reallyimportant, especially with those
long-term recurring things thatwe're putting out to notice that
(35:15):
when it's happening.
SPEAKER_01 (35:17):
The last question is always my favorite.
It's what's something cool, new,or interesting, learned, built,
discovered, doesn't have to becoding related, totally can be,
can be coding adjacent.
What do you have for cool, new,or interesting?
SPEAKER_00 (35:32):
Yeah, I was thinking about this.
And if you had told me two yearsago that I would be using LLMs a
ton, I would have said, yeah,that makes sense.
But if you told me two years agothat I would be talking to my
computer as much as I am rightnow, that I would have been
really surprised by.
And so I've been usingWhisperflow, and I know people
(35:53):
are using that.
And there are a few other toolspeople are using.
I feel like Monologues one, Ithink.
Yeah, monologue's a prettypopular one.
From every.
And yeah, so that's been like areal game changer, I guess, in
some ways.
Like I finally decided to payfor a subscription to that
because I tried a few differenttools and it felt like
(36:15):
Whisperflow was it just fit mebest, or whatever.
And it's really weird because Iwant to say probably around 2018
or 2019, long before I waspodcasting, or it was like a
period of my life where I wasdoing tons of Rails development
work, but I rarely had anyconversations with my clients
(36:38):
other than emails or yeah,mainly just email.
I wasn't podcasting, I wasn'ttalking to, I didn't really have
a lot of Ruby or Rails friends.
And so I noticed when I startedto do more content type stuff
and podcasting that there was aperiod where it felt like I
didn't even know how to talk.
(36:59):
Like I don't even know if I canexplain it, but I didn't know
how to talk because I spent somuch time either thinking or
just typing or just writing, butnot just like off the cuff
speaking.
And maybe because of that, I'mmuch more comfortable now
talking to my computer when itcomes to like, okay, Claude,
(37:20):
here's what's going on, here'sthe thing I'm working on.
I need to be able to do this.
And so, like, that's been soweird to make that shift from
writing, writing specs out tolike just speaking.
I think the the thing that'samazing is how it can use the
context to know when I'm talkingabout a class or a module or a
(37:42):
method, or get pretty close on alot of those things.
Because that seemed like thething that would never work
about it is you're referencingso many class names or method
names, and you'd have to just goback and fix all of those.
But it gets it right enough thatit doesn't block me too much or
(38:02):
doesn't block the flow.
That's been really cool.
Yeah, so I'm using that quite abit.
And then I've discovered that Iam also using it more in my
note-taking app.
So now that I've got it, nowthat I'm like talking to my
computer more, talking to CloudCode, I'm also just talking into
(38:24):
Bear, my Markdown note-takingapp.
As I'm working on any givenproject, I'm often summarizing
for myself, like, okay, at thispoint, I've got this part done
and I'm struggling to decide howto approach this next piece.
And I'm just like saying thisout loud and putting this in
this.
(38:44):
I usually have one big note forevery major project or feature
that I'm building.
And so this note can get reallylong, but it summarizes
everything that I've beenworking on.
And I can go back by day andfigure out, oh, this is what I
was working on in previous daysor whatever.
And now I'm just like doingthese summaries now with
(39:06):
Whisperflow as well.
And that also is really helpful.
But it's such a dramatic shiftfrom what I was doing five years
ago.
SPEAKER_01 (39:15):
Yeah, AI definitely flipped our jobs in so many ways
on their head.
Like, I still feel like if youboil down when I first started
programming professionally and Ihad to explain what I did, I
feel like that explanation isn'ttoo different anymore.
Like I'm still problem solving.
I'm still like taking a complexfeature and I'm breaking it down
(39:38):
into like executable bits andlike then developing an
architecture and yada yada forthe code itself.
The biggest shift has been likeI type the code a lot less.
In some ways, it's like I wentfrom using a manual hammer to
like a nail gun.
You still have to know how tobuild a house correctly, or the
(40:00):
nail gun's not going to do youany good.
Like I feel like AI, if youdon't use AI well, garbage in,
garbage out, you get crap codefrom it, and you're just like,
this is useless.
You suck.
Um then it goes, you'reabsolutely right.
But yeah, like learning how touse those tools is the way that
(40:21):
we get to continue to do whatour jobs were, but it is so
different.
Yeah, I do miss writing straightout writing code.
I just feel like I don't do itanymore.
I do like to tweak something,I'm like, I'm not gonna use an
LLM to like tweak this method orsomething, but like I really
don't have to write out syntaxmuch anymore.
(40:43):
I have to like read the codethat AI wrote and make sure it's
not, yeah.
I've called it out, been like,this is overly complex.
And it's like, you're absolutelyright, too complex, and like we
trim it down, but yeah, writingcode, it always was way less of
my job than I thought it wouldbe when I was in school.
And it's like borderlinenon-existent now.
(41:06):
It's crazy.
SPEAKER_00 (41:08):
I think there are some cases maybe where I'm
writing there's a part of aclient app or a way their
architecture is that is overlycomplex and has a lot of
indirection.
And I was trying to reimaginewhat it would look like if I
simplified it.
It was easier for me to just tryto take a fresh sheet of paper
(41:31):
and do that myself for one classand then try to explain all of
that.
Maybe I guess I could try it to.
Other way as well and tell CloudCode exactly what I was
thinking.
But I felt like I needed to feelit myself.
I wouldn't be able to get to thearchitecture by looking at the
rest of the app.
One thing that's Cloud's greatat is looking at everything else
(41:54):
in your app and building thesame way.
But if you're not happy with theway it's built, what do you do?
You could certainly dorefactoring, but it seems like
there's a like a tendency towardreverting toward whatever is in
the code base as it currentlystands.
And if you want a new pattern,you might have to be pressing
harder to make that happen.
(42:15):
But yeah, a lot of it is justtalking.
And then, you know, likeyesterday saying, hey, I need
you to add a validation toensure that the started at
timestamp is in the future.
And then it wanted to do acustom validation.
I'm like, well, you can use acomparison.
You know, there's a built-invalidate comparison.
(42:35):
You don't have to do this.
So it was trying to do customvalidations a bunch.
And I'm like, nah, that's notthe way I want.
I know there's another way to dothis.
And it's But if you didn't knowthat, if you didn't know that,
you would just accept whateverthe AI spit out.
And that's where that ends upbeing the job.
You can't give the horse itshead.
Like I'm always thinking aboutthis being like, all right, we
used to have like hand-drawncarts, and now we have horses.
(42:56):
We figured out how to hookhorses up to our carts, but that
means now I've got to hold thereins and I've got to learn not
to give this horse like its headto go wherever it wants to go.
No, we're not going off into theforest.
You've got to stay on the road.
We're going this way.
No, we can't stop at the streamto drink right now.
You need to keep going orwhatever it is.
You know, like we gotta maintainit's not under our own power
(43:19):
anymore, but you're stilldirecting.
And you can't just give it itshead and let it go wherever it
wants.
SPEAKER_01 (43:24):
It needs to Yeah, you still have to know your
shit.
If you know nothing aboutprogramming, about web
development, about how HTTPworks, you can talk to an LLM
and maybe get some goodinformation, but LLMs
hallucinate.
These tools aren't perfect.
Like you just said, like it wastrying to do custom validation,
which is a totally validsolution in some cases.
(43:48):
But in that case, like there wasa better solution.
That's where it's like when youwere talking about are people
gonna want dev content now thatwe're using LLMs and stuff?
And I would argue yes, the smartpeople will, because like you
still have to know how to dothis stuff.
Sure, you can build a whole SaaSproject in a week now with LLMs.
Can you maintain it for fiveyears?
(44:10):
Maybe you just let AI just doits thing all the time.
It won't matter if it'smaintainable.
Maybe we'll see in five years.
There's a group of people thatsay that, and I'm definitely not
there yet.
No, I think that it's stillsuper important to like enforce
boundaries with architecture,with the code it writes, with
(44:34):
the manner in which consistencyis done.
I think Ruby on Rails, havingthe convention over
configuration, makes it reallygood for AIs to write Rails code
because there are theseguardrails.
You do it this way.
And as long as you know whatyou're doing or what it should
at least look like or feel like,you can use AI to get stuff out
(44:58):
very quickly.
You just have to make sure thatyou're not just blindly going,
yep, do whatever you want.
Yep, do whatever you want, yep,do whatever you want.
Here's a PR.
And then we'll have a differentAI agent review that PR and then
merge it.
And we'll never actually look atthe code and hope to God it
works.
Come on now.
I don't know.
AI changes so quickly, I couldbe very wrong.
And in like a year, we could behaving a completely different
(45:20):
conversation about our jobs, butit just feels like the best code
that AI is writing is the codethat's very much guided along.
That's in my experience.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (45:32):
Yeah.
That's where I'm at.
I think I was blown away thissummer when I had a couple
friends of mine that I'm in agroup chat with that were like,
you gotta try cloud code.
And I was like, all right, I'lltry it.
And then it was like, oh, okay,okay.
And then it was like periods inthe fall where I was like, oh
man, I don't know what's gonnahappen here.
Man, I don't know.
And I think at the end of theyear, I was finally like, all
(45:54):
right, I'm happy with this.
I think this is a net positive.
I don't want to go back theprevious way.
There are some things that werereally nice about that, but I'll
tell you, there are days whereI'm like, where in the past, if
I was hitting a mentalexhaustion and I was just like,
I can't get my brain to gothere.
I can't think.
(46:14):
Now I can just keep talking.
All right, I don't know the bestway to do this.
Instead, I'd be like thinkingabout like, how do I solve this
problem?
Or I don't, I'm stuck.
Now I can just talk my way outof it or say, like, give me a
solution.
And then I can say, no, notthat.
That's not it.
That's not it.
It's much easier to be in thatmode, you know, like the edit
(46:36):
mode than in the raw creationmode.
It takes a certain level ofenergy or a certain kind of
focus.
And if there are times I don'thave that, there are.
There are times that I don'thave that.
And in the past, I would havejust pushed through and probably
not been very productive.
And now I can just say, like,all right, have at it.
I'm just explaining it, and thenI'll tell you why I don't like
(46:58):
your idea.
But it'll probably get meunblocked.
SPEAKER_01 (47:01):
Yeah.
Something I used to do was likewrite everything a few different
ways because I didn't knowexactly how I wanted it laid
out, or like I get halfwaythrough and be like, oh, you
know what?
I made the wrong decision in thebeginning.
Let me start from scratch.
Like I try not to tie myself tomy code too much.
That way I gave the best versionof it after seeing a couple of
different solutions for biggerthings, obviously, but like so
(47:24):
much easier with AI to just belike, let's write it this way.
Okay, stash that or justcompletely get rid of it.
New context.
Same goal, same feature,different prompt, different way
of explaining what I want andsee what that looks like.
Sometimes just running theprompt twice, that kind of
experimentation helps too.
(47:45):
Cause then, like you can tellClaude to like remember things
it learned by like updating itsown file.
That's really helpful too.
Where it's like, we went throughall these iterations, and this
is the solution, and here's whythis works.
Now update your memory so thatnext time I ask you, we don't
have to go through nineiterations.
Like, it's sort of like workingwith a junior at times.
(48:06):
I'm leveling you up, but itneeds those guardrails, and you
are the guardrails.
SPEAKER_00 (48:11):
There's a nice part about that, what you were
saying, like being able to do itmultiple ways.
There's this idea of thediverge, converge phases of any
project, and diverge is whereyou're trying to produce a bunch
of concepts for something.
Like you're building a feature,and maybe you have a first
(48:32):
concept of what that feature isgoing to look like, how it's
going to function, but yourfirst idea for it might not be
the best one.
Same with implementation.
Your first idea for how youmight implement it might not be
the best one.
So diverge is like, let's try abunch of options.
And then once we see them, wecan converge back to the final.
But that can be an expensivething.
So people often do it in designphases.
(48:54):
Like for visual design, youmight do this.
All right, we're rebranding oursite or our app or whatever.
We're going to do try threedifferent flavors or whatever.
You might also do thatarchitecturally or with a
feature now.
And it's much less expensive todo the diverge stage now because
you can just throw an LLM at it.
Even if you did one of themyourself, you could let LLMs do
(49:16):
two more at very low cost andvery low time commitment.
And then converge once you'vegot like those laid out.
Like, actually, that's the onewe want.
Or it's going to be acombination of A and B.
Then you've probably done betterthan if you just tried one thing
itself.
Sometimes you know, butsometimes you don't.
And it's really helpful to seethe options.
SPEAKER_01 (49:36):
Yep.
It's a nail gun.
You still got to know how tobuild the house.
The nail gun just helps you doit faster once you know what
you're doing.
That may be a naive way oflooking at AI.
Maybe I'm not being bullishenough on it, but it's that's
been my experience.
Like I've definitely adopted itmore.
We started using it at work.
(49:58):
Like we spent all of Novemberlike really trying it, really
making sure that we were usingit in our projects, even if it
slowed us down to like get usedto it.
Like a concerted effort thathelped me a lot be more
comfortable with it and see theadvantages of it.
But it also helped me realizelike it is just a tool.
It's probably the same waypeople like who were programming
(50:19):
with punch cards, and then wehad a compiler, were like, it's
stupid.
It could never replace us.
And then like they learn how touse it.
And they're like, oh, I stillhave a job here.
I still have a role here.
I still have a purpose here.
I guide the thing.
The compiler just helps us do itfaster.
Zip.
That's it.
Those are at least my crazy assthoughts.
SPEAKER_00 (50:40):
That's my feeling.
Like, I in the middle of thesummer, I thought, like, how
disruptive is this?
I don't know.
I think at this point, yes, it'svery disruptive, but I still
have work.
This is making me work moreproductive.
And it was harder to learnprogramming in general than
learn how to use cloud code.
(51:00):
I've picked these things up.
And you know, I may not be thebest at it, but I've already
adopted them into my workflow.
My workflow has changeddramatically, but I'm still
doing my job.
And I'm happy about that.
For Blue Ridge, are you stilllooking for volunteers?
I forgot to ask that.
Yeah.
Um thing that's important withvolunteers is figuring out like
(51:22):
all the sort of roles that youneed filled.
Because often you can have a lotof people that are interested,
but you need to kind of knowahead of time like, here are the
things that need to be done thatI can sort of hand off to
volunteers.
I do need to sit down and planthose out.
But yes, I'm looking forvolunteers.
We're still looking forsponsors.
Obviously, CFP's open, so thespeakers.
(51:44):
Yeah, so all of it's wide open.
I will be probably doing like avolunteer kickoff meeting in the
next couple weeks to just sayhello to everybody that wants to
help and sort of divvy out someresponsibilities.
And some of those will happenprior to the conference, and
then there'll be the ones thatare like specific to the
(52:05):
conference.
Because if you're helping withregistration, that's like a
thing that you do during theconference.
But you know, there might beother things that that we need
sort of earlier on.
So depending on what people havetime for.
SPEAKER_01 (52:16):
Okay, cool.
So if you're interested inspeaking, volunteering, or
sponsoring Blue Ridge Ruby, getin contact with you, or is there
a Blue Ridge Ruby Direct?
SPEAKER_00 (52:25):
Yeah, team at Blue RidgeRuby.com is great if you're
interested in volunteering.
If you are interested insponsoring, we have a sponsors
page and contact informationthere, and the CFP is on the
site as well.
So all of this there.
SPEAKER_01 (52:38):
Yeah, cool, man.
Anything else before we wrap itup that you want to talk about?
I think we think that's it.
Yeah.
Cool.
Looking forward to Blue RidgeRuby.
It's a great conference.
Asheville's an awesome place tohost something like that.
And the extracurriculars at theend are always good.
So definitely looking forward tothat.
(52:58):
And appreciate you coming backon the show and talking about
it.
And I'll definitely see you inApril.
Yeah, so Blue RidgeRuby.com,right, is the site.
You're on Blue Sky and X and allthe places.
Ruby Social and LinkedIn.
Yeah.
And now when I do LinkedIn,we're doing the socials.
(53:19):
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Everywhere on the socials.
Awesome.
Well, folks, I'll see you in thenext one.
Jeremy, thanks again for comingon.
We're looking forward to havingyou on again.
I appreciate it.
Yeah.
Look forward to seeing you soon.
Bye.
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