Live From Rubyconf 2023 — Conference Recap, Talk Highlights, Ruby 4, Hacking on OSS, Restaurant Reviews, and Much More

Welcome to our first ever live episode of Ruby for All, where Andrew and Julie share their vibrant experiences from RubyConf in San Diego. Today, they share their excitement at attending a live conference and their interesting experiences, including their interaction with fellow attendees, sessions they attended, and community building activities they participated in. Also, there’s conversations about open source coding, autonomous learning, the future of Ruby, leveraging podcasting within the Ruby community, and their expectations from the rest of the conference. Hit download now to hear more! 

[00:00:23] Andrew and Julie share their enjoyment of the conference and they discuss their discomfort with team building, with Andrew having a panic attack. 

[00:02:10] We hear about a new journal app on the iPhone that suggests memories based on places you’ve visited, and photos taken. 

[00:02:57] Julie details her experience on the first community day at the Hackspace, where she, Kevin and Drew, explored Ruby LSP (Language Server Protocol), a project from Shopify for better VS Code integration. 

[00:04:06] Andrew explains Heredocs, and Julie explains they encountered a bug related to a cursor positioning in the code editor while working on a feature for Heredocs.

[00:05:46] Julie expresses her appreciation for the hack day format, allowing interaction with project maintainers and suggesting it be included in future conferences. 

[00:07:50] They give feedback for improving the hack day, such as better signage for project tables and ensuring equal attention venue positively.

[00:10:12] The conversation turns to the conference’s social aspects, like hanging out by the fire and the arrival of more attendees on Tuesday. They mention Matz’s pre-recorded keynote and the opening ceremony. 

[00:11:24] Julie and Andrew share their thoughts on the opening ceremony.  Andrew clarifies they spoofed “The Wizard of Oz.” Julie notes the performance was unexpected and well-executed. 

[00:12:38] Andrew mentions that Matz had a pre-recorded keynote, and both Julie and Andrew were disappointed missing the memo that Matz wouldn’t be there. Andrew summarizes the keynote mentioning Matz discussing Ruby’s future, including Ruby 4.0 expected in 2030, and his plans for retirement. 

[00:14:00] Julie appreciates how Matz asked first-time conference attendees to raise their hands, demonstrating Ruby’s vitality. Andrew and Julie spent time networking in the hallway rather than attending talks, emphasizing the value of personal connections.

[00:15:07] They participated in a roundtable discussion about podcasting in the Ruby community that was sponsored by Ruby Central. 

[00:19:09] Andrew and Julie attended Saron Yitbareks’ motivational keynote and Andrew mentions going to a talk on Rack, while Julie preferred hallway networking, planning to watch talk recording later. 

Panelists:

Andrew Mason

Julie J.

Sponsors:

Honeybadger

GoRails

Links:

Andrew Mason X/Twitter

Andrew Mason Website

Julie J. X/Twitter

Julie J. Website

How To Use Heredoc in Ruby
Ruby Central

Saron Yitbarek 

Rails on Rack

• (00:23) - Introduction and discomfort with team building
• (02:10)