00:00:19.760
panel at Railsconf. Uh I'll be kind of hosting and moderating. Uh, I'm going to
00:00:24.800
introduce myself and my podcast and then we'll just kind of go down the line and give everybody the opportunity to do that. Uh, like I said, my name is David
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Hill. I have the the Ode to RailsCom podcast that will be concluding soon as a kind of a a retrospective on memories
00:00:39.120
of Railscom over the years and I think I've got two more weeks of episodes and then that'll be done. As was announced
00:00:45.440
this morning uh in the opening before the opening keynote, I'm co-hosting the Ruby Gems podcast with Marty Hod and
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And we're also going to kind of take the opportunity to give a quick shout out to our sponsors if we have those. Uh my
00:01:01.359
sponsor is a littleknown uh Rubious by the name of Chris Oliver over here and
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Go Rails. So thank you to Go Rails for sponsoring my podcast. Hello everyone. My name is Drew Bragg. I
00:01:12.720
am the host of code and the coding coders who code it. Um I would like to shout out my sponsors by pulling an Andy
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Croll if you all don't mind. We have Honeybadger. Thank you very
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much, Honeybadger.
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And we have Judo Scale. Thank you very much, Judo Scale. Stephanie, take it away.
00:01:36.400
Hey, uh, I'm Stephanie Min. I don't have multiple t-shirts on, and I don't have a
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sponsor to shout out. I had no idea that was happening. Uh, but I was most recently a senior developer at THBOT and
00:01:48.960
I co-hosted the bike shed with my co-host Joel Kinville who is somewhere in this audience right over there.
00:02:02.560
Ruby with Andrew Mason. I think that's him over there. Uh, and our sponsors are the same
00:02:08.800
t-shirts. Uh, there we've got honey. You want them? You can put them on. You can you can show them off. I don't
00:02:13.840
need those sweaty t-shirts. I'm not that sweaty. I got one underneath. But yeah, shout out to Honeybadger and
00:02:19.840
Judo Scale. All right, so we kind of brainstormed a
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set of questions, the topics that we wanted to talk about here. The first one
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was a this was a a scholar from Rubyconf in November last year. I met her, kind
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of talked to talked to her a little bit since she was from Brazil and I lived in Brazil for a little bit and spoke Portuguese and so I was just kind of
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like, "Oh, it's fun to have that connection." Uh, she reached out to me a couple months later and like talking
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about the podcast, but then she asked uh she was getting ready to go to Tropical R. And so this was a question she asked
00:02:54.160
me and I kind of wanted to float this to all three of you and see what you have to say about it. How do you get better
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at talking to people at conferences? Do you do anything to prepare? Is there anything you do that helps in starting
00:03:05.440
conversations with people? I think it's a general Do you have any tips for doing well in a conference setting? So, Drew,
00:03:12.480
do you have any thoughts on that? Uh, yeah. I for one, we are what we
00:03:18.400
consistently do. So, if the more you talk to people, the better you will be at it. Um, it's still something that I
00:03:24.640
struggle with despite you might see me running around acting like a fool and being bouncy and wearing sunglasses
00:03:30.640
inside for no reason. But that's kind of how I deal with the anxiety that comes with interacting with a lot of people.
00:03:37.120
Um, it's something that you just you work on and you get a little bit better at every conference. Um, and you remind
00:03:43.280
yourself like I have a social battery. I'm going to destroy it over the next 3 days and then I'll recover and I'll do
00:03:49.840
better next time. So, it's just something uh every time you go out, you just try to put yourself out there a
00:03:55.599
little bit more. Thanks. Um let's see. Well, I used to
00:04:01.439
live in New York City for a brief um like year and I was desperately in need
00:04:06.720
of friends and I would constantly be trying to make eye contact with people and smiling at them. No one
00:04:12.480
reciprocated. Uh because I guess that that's that's New York for you. But here it works quite well is to just kind of
00:04:18.639
like I don't know be a friendly face and say hello and I will share a couple of my go-to uh questions which is uh you
00:04:28.160
know like what's a talk that you saw um or like where are you coming from? I think those are usually some pretty easy
00:04:34.320
conversation starters and if you're lucky and you happen to ask that to an extrovert then they will do the work for
00:04:40.639
you of continuing the conversation. So those are my tips. You know, if you make uh 750 screencasts
00:04:48.880
and go to a a conference, conversations just they start themselves.
00:04:55.759
But no, seriously, it's like we're all here for the same reason to talk about Ruby and Rails and stuff. So, you know,
00:05:03.199
any person that you see is has a connection with you already. So, like
00:05:08.400
that's why we're here. So you can ask them what they're working on, what's interesting, like what uh you know, what
00:05:14.160
can they teach you, whatever. Like there's so many easy ways to uh to
00:05:19.520
connect with people at a conference like this cuz they're not all strangers. We're all here for the same reasons,
00:05:25.199
same interests and to to not completely cheat. I will also answer the question. Um, what I
00:05:33.039
told her was to what helped me was structuring it as much as I possibly
00:05:38.639
could. Um, for example, I'm a huge proponent of board game night, which you
00:05:43.840
know, we're all looking forward to tonight and Drew and I are are planning on playing some ridiculous games. Um,
00:05:49.520
but for me, I found that having that structure of a board game and the rules of how you interact with another person
00:05:55.840
took all the pressure off of those voices in my brain telling me I'm doing
00:06:00.880
socialing wrong. Um, because now I've got a set of rules by which I operate and I I was so much more comfortable and
00:06:07.520
even though I was playing a game, I could also then apply that to how I interacted with those people going
00:06:13.840
forward because I had kind of lowered those social barriers a bit for myself.
00:06:20.319
So the next question comes from Alan Ridlehoover. He asked to guest or not to guest. That
00:06:28.000
is the question. What are the pros and cons of inviting guests onto your podcast? How do you prepare for a guest?
00:06:35.680
Well, I I solo host my show. So uh if I don't have a guest, I don't have a show.
00:06:42.479
Unfortunately, I will always have a guest. Not unfortunately. I like having guests. That's the whole reason why I started podcasting. But, uh, it does
00:06:48.319
mean that if I can't schedule someone, unlike, you know, Chris or someone with a co-host, I just won't be releasing a a
00:06:55.039
show that week. So, uh, my easy answer is always guest so that I have a show.
00:07:02.800
Cool. Well, I have uh the opposite answer uh from you, I guess, because uh
00:07:08.560
for a while the bike was me and Joelle and it was just we would just get on every week and just talk with kind of
00:07:17.199
minimal preparation. And I think I was always so nervous that like I I don't
00:07:22.800
know like do people want to hear what uh I have to say. And it turns out that I I
00:07:28.400
think people like the familiarity of just having uh people to listen to every week and have a parasocial relationship
00:07:35.360
with. Um and yeah, I think the best comments that I got was it was less
00:07:41.039
about like, oh, I shared this like really cool tech thing. um and more just uh yeah, I like that I get to listen to
00:07:48.479
people uh talk about Ruby and Rails um and have it be relatable. So, uh I guess
00:07:55.199
it really does depend on kind of what you're uh kind of hoping to do with with the podcast. Like it yeah, do do what
00:08:01.680
feels good for you. We got a answer to this and the last
00:08:07.840
question if you or I don't know if it was the last question. I forgot what we
00:08:12.879
are. But if you We're at Railscom.
00:08:18.160
Oh, if All right. So, if you want to start conversations with people and you have a podcast, you can just invite
00:08:24.800
anybody you want on. Um, so that's a good way to start conversations with people, start a podcast. Um, but yeah,
00:08:33.279
having having guests was is a great way to, you know, add some variety to the
00:08:40.159
show and stuff like we found like doing remote Ruby like sometimes not a lot
00:08:45.680
changes week to week. So having a guest was very helpful to, you know, break that up and talk about something
00:08:51.600
different or whatever, but it was often an excuse cuz we just want to talk to you about what you're building and what
00:08:57.519
you're working on. Um, but you do have to be a lot more prepared. You have to have 10 questions. If somebody um just
00:09:06.160
feels strange being on a podcast, it's like it's helpful like now that we use
00:09:11.519
Zoom and can see each other's faces. We used to use like Zencaster and so it was just kind of like nobody saw each other
00:09:17.839
and we're talking to each other and we'd talk over each other. It it was kind of a struggle, but um you know, we'd have
00:09:26.160
to get to know somebody and get them to tell stories, you know, and that's that can be tough if you don't have, you
00:09:32.800
know, a history with them and you're like more or less meeting them for the first time on the podcast. That can be a
00:09:39.120
little trickier, but you want to just kind of prepare that way and like get to know them and, you know, share that on
00:09:45.519
the show and stuff. But yeah, it can be good and, you know, stressful at the
00:09:51.040
same time. Yeah, I'm I'm in a similar boat with Drew where like my my whole show was
00:09:56.320
predicated on having a guest to interview and talk about their experiences at RailsCom. Uh when I
00:10:02.320
started the podcast, I had like a a detailed set of questions that I had brainstormed of like every possible way
00:10:09.600
a person could have uh experienced RailsCom as a volunteer, as a a speaker,
00:10:15.760
as a scholar guide, is like went through the gamut of everything. Is like how did you participate in RailsC? Let's talk
00:10:22.079
about every nuance of that. Um, but then as I got more comfortable with it, I
00:10:27.760
stopped using that list of questions and I just started kind of riffing with it and it's like let's just how did you
00:10:33.200
enjoy RailsC? It just kind of had to it became much more of a casual conversation and so I there's still some
00:10:39.920
preparation there but at the same time it kind of just became a lot more casual.
00:10:46.560
All right, so our next question comes from Lucian Ginda. I hope I pronounced
00:10:51.680
your name correctly. Uh, how can we attract new programmers
00:10:56.800
to learn Ruby and Rails? What's the simplest way to attract new people? I feel like this is a great question for
00:11:03.279
Chris, so I'm going to let him start and we'll go reverse order and I'll steal your answer. Oh, I don't know. I mean,
00:11:11.519
for me, I got introduced into Rails when I was in in school, like in college,
00:11:17.279
junior year. Um, and that's a really influential time in
00:11:22.399
people's careers. They're trying to figure out what to do with their lives and whatever. And you know, they'll be
00:11:27.839
pushed into, for us, it was Java and.NET that were being taught in school. And
00:11:33.440
then, um, I had a professor that was doing Ruby and Rails. We had uh Blake
00:11:38.560
Mizerani from Heroku come out back in 2010 to our our CS department that was
00:11:45.120
like, you know, maybe 10, 15, 20 people that were that were there and we we all
00:11:50.399
watched like, holy crap, he ran one command and then deployed this Rails application. We have never deployed any
00:11:57.600
of our code ever. And so it was just mind-blowing to us and that was the kind
00:12:03.760
of stuff that like stuck with us like this is very different than these other languages, these other communities and
00:12:10.240
stuff. Um, and I also think like the scholars and guides program is phenomenal because it gets people who
00:12:16.639
are in the beginnings of their careers to the community and then they get to realize like this is more like family
00:12:23.200
than a you know business networking event or whatever. So, it it really changes things a lot. I think what the
00:12:30.399
earlier in somebody's career we can get in front of them, I feel like that will help a ton.
00:12:38.720
Great. Um, I actually don't have a good answer to this other than I think it's already happening. Like I am always um
00:12:47.440
not not surprised necessarily but one thing that I think I've observed or noticed is that every year at these
00:12:52.720
conferences there's always like a really big number of people who are here at the conference for the first time who are new to Rails. I ran a workshop earlier
00:13:00.079
this morning and like that was one of my questions for folks is like who here has been using Rails for less than a year or
00:13:06.079
like less than three years and uh I would say that it was almost half. So,
00:13:11.600
um, in some ways I think it's like maybe we're already doing this really well. And, uh, I also kind of had, uh,
00:13:20.000
surveyed people too about like where their background in programming was from, whether they were self-taught or had formal college education or went to
00:13:26.399
a boot camp. And, um, somehow we all ended up here. So, I'm going to say that
00:13:32.639
perhaps it's uh, just something that we're already organically pretty good at. And maybe, you know, like you said,
00:13:39.120
I think it will be cool to see if it becomes something that gets taught um in more formal like college settings, but
00:13:45.519
uh this like word of mouth thing has been working pretty well for us so far. Yeah, definitely. I think um ensuring
00:13:52.000
that it's being taught and being presented to those learning whether it's in a CS uh in a college environment or
00:13:58.880
if it's through the boot camps. I know a lot of boot camps have moved away from Rails because there wasn't a lot of jobs
00:14:03.920
for those entering. So, I think keeping the availability of junior roles open is
00:14:11.360
going to seriously help. Um, if someone's going and looking for a role to determine what language they should
00:14:18.160
learn if they see a ton of open Ruby and Rails um roles, they're going to feel confident that learning this will help
00:14:24.399
them get a job and get them paid. Um, I think that will be something that if
00:14:29.600
people are anxious to learn it because there's a lot of jobs, people will then also be able to teach it and we'll get a
00:14:36.079
lot of people coming to Ruby and Rails cuz that's where the jobs are.
00:14:42.160
I feel like any answer I give is going to be really cheap and low level after those ones. Um, for me the biggest draw
00:14:49.760
has been the community as like on top of like, yeah, absolutely need to be paid to food for my family and roof over
00:14:56.160
their head and those types of necessities, but the community has just been so open and welcoming and amazing.
00:15:02.560
And it's like, oh wow, there's there's not even there's almost an expectation.
00:15:08.160
It's like, yeah, you should step up. You should participate. you should engage in the community and be a part of it and
00:15:13.519
not just be a passive on the side there just kind of watching and consuming. Um,
00:15:20.320
and so yeah, just the the way the community kind of just opened up to me once I realized that and started trying to participate more. I was like, "Oh,
00:15:26.560
wow. People are okay with me having a voice and engaging in things." And and
00:15:32.720
that was a kind of an eye openener for me and hopefully it'll help bring more people in when they realize that, too.
00:15:37.839
Can I say something that absolutely celebrate you? Is that okay? Sure. Okay. If you all didn't know, it was at
00:15:44.639
last Railscom that David was floating the idea of like, what if I started a podcast? So, it was just this time last
00:15:51.440
year that he went from this is a thing I kind of want to do. Is this a good idea, bad idea? To having done how many
00:15:58.160
episodes have you done now? When it's over, it'll be 52 episodes. Over 52 episodes. Is about to co-host
00:16:03.600
another podcast. So this is perhaps a sign that like if you can think of it,
00:16:08.880
it can probably figure you can figure out how to make it happen. Well, thank you. And like I I assigned a
00:16:15.040
bit of blame to Drew here as well cuz the the year that I met Drew, he was telling me about his podcast and how he
00:16:21.279
used the podcast as an excuse to go talk to interesting people. And then 5 minutes later, I watched him do that and
00:16:28.399
go up to Aaron Patterson and ask him to be on the podcast. And so I was like, "Oh, wow. not a that's an interesting
00:16:34.399
avenue to take with it. That's something that stuck with me for a long time and b like he is actually doing that. He's
00:16:41.120
like he's not just saying oh that's a thing I used to trick my brain which is something that I have done but he
00:16:46.399
actually did that in front of me and so I thought that's really interesting that I got to see that.
00:16:52.880
Aaron still hasn't been on the show. So if you see him please remind him he's
00:16:58.560
supposed to come on my show. You know what show he has been on?
00:17:03.759
He's been on my show. No. All right. Uh, what's your favorite
00:17:10.959
Rails Conf or Ruby Conf memory?
00:17:16.400
Board Game Night is always the highlight of my conference. Uh, because I love
00:17:21.760
board games. It's a great way to meet new people outside of just a conference setting. Um, but a little more
00:17:28.480
selfishly, uh, I got to keynote Ruby Comp in Chicago last year and that was
00:17:34.559
an amazing experience. And I will never forget that. I've spoken at a few conferences now, but like keynoting to a
00:17:42.080
room that big with that many people. And then I I do a silly little game show where I talk about weird things about
00:17:48.559
Ruby. And sitting in the front row is Matts, the creator of the freaking
00:17:54.080
language. And I'm kind of poking a little bit of fun at him. I'm talking about how I named my dog Matt. And it's
00:18:00.000
just like this surreal experience of I'm talking to all of these people. Matts is there. I'm talking about this language
00:18:05.440
that I love. And that will always stick out in my head.
00:18:10.640
Um I have a a few really great memories since becoming a speaker, but I think
00:18:16.640
one of the ones that I want to highlight because it's uh just I don't know. It's kind of one of those things. It's like
00:18:22.559
it just happens because you're with friends, you know? It's not anything like specific about the conference. It's just like, oh, we're all here. A few
00:18:28.880
years ago at Eroscon in Portland, uh I think it was at a double tree or I think
00:18:34.000
the hotel was a double tree. And if anyone knows that the Double Tree has free cookies, um that's why it's a hotel
00:18:41.919
cham I'm lo and loyal to. But they'll they'll give you free like warm cookies
00:18:47.039
uh when you check in. And one night, I think I was with some people who were speaking and they were just doing some
00:18:53.280
dry runs uh in the hotel lobby. And so we were all kind of gathering. It was like probably 10:00 p.m. And we were,
00:19:00.880
you know, supporting supporting them, practicing. And I got to uh go up to the
00:19:07.760
reception and ask for like seven cookies to bring to all my friends. and they
00:19:13.440
opened a drawer like a warmer drawer of these cookies and and gave and were like like you know thought I don't know I had
00:19:20.320
to explain to them that they were for other people but um yeah that is my other pro tip is uh cookies at Double
00:19:27.840
Tree. I'm I'm sure that's not the first person someone said. Yeah, these are totally for other people.
00:19:33.440
Yeah. Yeah, that's fair. That's a good one. Um
00:19:39.200
there's been so many various memories. Like this year is wild that you know I
00:19:45.039
get to co-chair the very last Rails comp. Like super special feeling. But
00:19:50.080
honestly the one memory that I think about the most was like
00:19:56.720
a few years after starting doing screencasts and things like I got to go to my first Rails comp in Atlanta. Uh, I
00:20:05.360
forget what what year that was, 2015. And, uh, I was super awkward. I didn't
00:20:12.080
know anybody at all. And, uh, grabbed lunch, went through the line, just, you
00:20:17.840
know, occasionally talking awkwardly with other people, then like sit down or
00:20:23.039
try and find a table to sit down at, right? And I'm like, is anybody sitting here? And they're like, nope, come sit
00:20:30.080
with us. And then somebody goes, you know, I heard your voice in the office last week. And I was like, "This is
00:20:36.400
weird." Um, and that was kind of the first time that I realized like all this, you know, all these videos I'd
00:20:43.280
made and published on the internet and like I get to see views and maybe an avatar and a comment or something. I
00:20:48.799
hadn't really actually got to interact with the people who were, you know, listening to the screencast or even like
00:20:55.200
listening to the podcast. You don't get to interact with all the people or know who is all listening to it. Um, so
00:21:01.919
that's like forever ingrained in my brain as just one of those moments. It was like, "Oh, this is this is what it's
00:21:08.640
all about, like the community and everything." So, it was a good good time. Nice. Uh, my favorite memory has
00:21:16.880
to do with meeting one of our Ruby celebrities, uh, Nadia Odio. Um, I met
00:21:22.480
her the first time and I think it was Kansas City when she gave the the Game Theory keynote. Um, so I met her very
00:21:30.000
briefly uh kind of in passing in the hallway. Uh, she overheard the conversation that I was having with
00:21:35.600
somebody that was going to game night that night and she like expressed dismay that she wasn't able to go to game night cuz then she already had plans for the
00:21:41.840
evening. But then like I ended up following her on Twitter and interacting with her on Twitter over like the next
00:21:47.360
several years. And then last year at Railscom, like after her amazing
00:21:52.480
keynote, I went up to kind of say hi and say she did an amazing job. and she
00:21:57.679
remembered me from our Twitter interactions, not from before at RailsCom, but then was like we just
00:22:03.280
started talking again. It was like, "Oh, yeah, she's really awesome." And we just we've had conversations since then. I
00:22:08.880
got to to kind of work with her on speaker line, her open source uh uh
00:22:14.880
project for showing CFP submissions so that people coming into the community can kind of get an idea of how people do
00:22:21.440
these. I got to work on that with her last year at the hack day, which was super fun. Um, if any of you have ever
00:22:28.559
have the opportunity to do the hack day like we had uh today and and last year, um, it was it was kind of a surreal
00:22:37.039
experience having the maintainer there at the table with you load up the project, clone it from GitHub, and
00:22:42.640
within a five minutes I found a bug just like there was an edit screen that wasn't reusing the form partial. It was
00:22:48.799
just doing it in line, so it didn't do everything correctly. It's like, "Oh, well, here's a PR to fix this bug that
00:22:55.039
was already in the application." And it was it really kind of, "Oh, wow. Maybe contributing to open source wasn't as
00:23:00.640
difficult and hard as I thought it was." I actually have another story about hack day. Oh, please do.
00:23:06.159
Okay. To share. So, I think it was last year at Railscom. Um, there was a a
00:23:12.159
thoughtbot table that I felt obligated to be at for uh because I worked there
00:23:17.440
and I had not contributed to any of thought bots open source at that point yet, but I was, you know, just kind of
00:23:23.360
there to help other people do it even though I hadn't done it myself. Um, and
00:23:29.280
you know, I honestly was there to hang out more than anything. Um, but then some a couple of people showed up and
00:23:34.960
were like actually interested in doing it and I was like, "Okay, I'll do it too." And the the three of us managed to
00:23:42.159
like close an issue on Factory Bot together. Um, and yeah, I got to kind of
00:23:47.600
at the person who opened it and be like, "This is this is released now." And um, it was just one of those things that's
00:23:53.760
like uh, you know, sometimes even it's it's not as difficult as as you might
00:24:00.159
might think. It can be just as easy as like let's look at the the things that are good first issues uh even without
00:24:06.080
the maintainer present. Um I think yeah I was a fake a fake
00:24:13.200
open source contributor that day but I guess now I officially am on the the little little screen. But yeah, having
00:24:20.080
having someone who's kind of an an authority of the open source project,
00:24:25.679
having someone there in person, I found was like super helpful to lowering that bar. That that was kind of an
00:24:31.520
intimidation factor almost cuz you know, anonymized internet communication. You
00:24:36.960
can't read tone, you can't read body language. It's really easy to take something that's said in a very
00:24:42.799
different way than how it was meant. Um, so having someone there at the table where you could just look up and be
00:24:48.000
like, I have a question about this thing. How do you want to approach this problem? And actually have that conversation face to face was so
00:24:55.360
beneficial to getting started. Yeah, that's a really good point. I do think it's validating to be like, well, I think I would do this. And just for
00:25:01.440
someone else to be like, yeah, that sounds reasonable to me. Um, it turns out that there's no like there is no
00:25:07.279
authoritative way to do it, but having a buddy just to to be like, yeah, what you're saying makes sense, I I think is
00:25:13.679
really valuable. Okay, for our next question, what is one
00:25:20.640
thing you would build into Rails if you were given complete and free reign to add something to Rails?
00:25:27.039
I mean, authentication's there now. So, I think it's complete, right? I'd add registration.
00:25:34.880
Just authentication doesn't have registration.
00:25:40.240
I mean, I got nothing. Authentication's in there. I think I do. I don't I'm not
00:25:45.360
Are there any features you almost always add though?
00:25:51.440
I mean, I'm surprised Chris hasn't jumped in with active record search yet. So, that's coming.
00:25:56.720
Search would be nice. Yeah, it's not there yet. Oh, okay. That's fair. Search. Final answer.
00:26:04.240
Uh, chat. I feel like that's something that I have had to add to a lot of apps.
00:26:11.200
Yeah. But I don't I don't actually stand by that answer, by the way. I'm just I'm
00:26:16.400
just saying that. Yeah, there's I mean there's
00:26:22.799
it's tough. It's like what is a feature that like in order to get into Rails, it needs to be something that like a vast
00:26:30.080
majority of applications need. Um file uploads is a good example. Rich text,
00:26:36.159
you know, and then it's like at that point, what what else? you know, maybe most applications need notifications,
00:26:42.559
but that means such a vast different thing to every single person,
00:26:49.360
you know, so it it's a pretty tricky question I feel like because it's like yeah, every app needs search, but uh
00:26:56.640
different types of search might be more important for certain applications and uh then once it's in there, you got to
00:27:03.200
maintain it for ever, forever, forever. That's one of the nice things about Rails, I mean, is that if it's not
00:27:10.159
there, there's a gem for that, too. And so, it's sort of hard to be like, well, what needs to be in Rails? It's like,
00:27:15.760
well, what does every application need? Probably most need notifications, but
00:27:21.279
maybe not all of them. And there's a great notice gem to to do notifications. and and almost anything I can think like
00:27:27.760
is there something I almost always add I'm trying to think of the gems I add I'm like does it need to be in Rails or
00:27:33.039
is it just so that I I it just so happens that I build those types of applications. I don't know if it needs
00:27:39.679
to be in Rails where everyone is going to use this.
00:27:45.840
I don't know what I would add it into Rails. the lately I've kind of had this sense that
00:27:51.600
there's a lot of things that have evolved recently in a lot of areas of Rails, but that the front end has has
00:27:57.679
been pretty static I feel like for a while. And so I feel like we're we're due some new thoughts and new ways of of
00:28:06.159
doing the front end maybe. But I mean we have Hot Wire and Stimulus and Turbo which I I love and adore and wish I
00:28:12.720
could work with more. And so maybe it's more just maybe what I'm feeling is I need to work with that more and since I
00:28:18.559
don't get to do that in my day job. Yeah. I was going to ask if you were talking about HTML rendering or
00:28:25.440
JavaScript or components or all of the above. Probably all of the above. Yeah. I just
00:28:31.760
since I'm professionally I'm stuck using Vue.js right now and so it's like I would really love to be able to to do
00:28:37.840
hot wire and turbo and stimulus and there are worse things than Vue.js. True. I I've
00:28:43.919
confirm I think I've worked with some of the worst things as well and thankfully I'm not there anymore but but still it's
00:28:51.039
just kind of like h I really wish I was doing something a little bit different. Um, I was just reminded of Robbie
00:28:58.000
Russell's talk yesterday that was the Rails features we loved, lost, and laughed at. And I was kind of like, oh
00:29:05.840
yeah, there's so many things that have been taken out of Rails over time, right? Because it turns out that they weren't quite right for just Rails
00:29:12.159
itself. Um, and there were things that he said like, "Oh, here's some features that we laughed at or kind of like have
00:29:18.240
uh are no longer." And I'm like, "Oh, that actually sounds like a really good idea." like the observers one. I was like, "Oh, I can see how that would have
00:29:24.399
been useful. I did not live through that era." So, yeah, the collective wisdom uh
00:29:30.720
is is helping me out there. So, um I don't know. I think just the point I'm trying to make though is that like it's
00:29:37.919
I think it's really cool that things that we thought would be really useful, we've learned from and just be like, "Oh, actually, maybe that's not and it
00:29:44.559
is kind of a it is a living living thing." Yeah. you reminded me of uh the very
00:29:51.840
first Rails app I worked on um some of the Zunoveriverse projects. They were
00:29:58.000
the this portion of the app that I was working on was all uh active resource
00:30:03.600
and so we had like one Rails app that was a repository of you know CMS content
00:30:10.159
uh and we would sync that across Rails applications. So some of them would you
00:30:15.279
know update content but we had a central app that you would do all the writing and uh categorization and administration
00:30:22.799
stuff in there and we would sync the the content across. Um, and the idea of like
00:30:28.480
making API requests look like active record requests sounded cool and I
00:30:34.399
thought it was really awesome and then very quickly you're like wait a minute like joins don't make sense across a
00:30:42.080
network like that like this is not a database and you know I can see pretty
00:30:47.600
quickly because I think that like got deprecated right around when I was getting into Rails or whatever and I was
00:30:54.000
like well it seems really awesome. Um, but then you start using it and you're like, well, actually the the conceptual
00:31:00.720
compression doesn't quite match up to what actually is happening here behind the scenes. Um, and that one's really
00:31:08.720
interesting to look back on and see that. I actually think that it could be awesome for the right person or team. I
00:31:16.399
I met someone earlier who was like, I'm looking for people who are into active resource because they are still it's
00:31:22.720
still kicking for them. And I think that's maybe that's one of those things that's like okay actually this would be good outside of Rails as a as a separate
00:31:29.919
gem right and um yeah like maybe it's not something that we all need but it
00:31:35.360
will work for the right if you if that's what that's what you're needing. I think it's kind of funny because I had the
00:31:41.440
exact same experience that you did, Chris, where like I I ran into active resource and I was like, "Oh, wow. This is kind of cool." And the moment I tried
00:31:48.320
to use it, it was just like this isn't quite working the way I thought it would.
00:31:54.320
So, those are all the questions that we had brainstormed for the session. Should we take some questions from the audience
00:32:01.840
if there's anybody that would like to ask a question? So, I see one. See, Anton, let's
00:32:07.519
Yeah, Anton, why don't you come up here and I'll hand you the mic.
00:32:12.720
I was gonna say I can just like or Hi everyone. Uh, I have one question
00:32:20.799
about your first ever podcast you ever made. It was a while ago probably.
00:32:28.159
And I'm curious uh what was your last trigger to make this very first podcast
00:32:34.720
and whether it was intentional or situational? Maybe you made podcast just for yourself
00:32:41.279
and then decided to publish it. Um so mine I have to blame two people
00:32:47.519
for my show. Wait, was he asking someone specific or are we going down the line? Okay, cool. Just making sure. Um, I have
00:32:54.720
to blame Jason Sweat cuz I listened to him do a podcast where he's like, "My podcast is basically an excuse to talk
00:32:59.760
to people that I wouldn't normally have an excuse to talk to." And I was like, "That's a great idea. I'm stealing that." Um, and then I didn't actually do
00:33:07.279
anything. And I was texting with Andrew Mason one night and I was like, "One of these days I'll do it. One of these days I'll do it." And he's like, "Let's do it
00:33:13.679
right now." And he just like clicked that part of my ADHD brain that was like, "All right, we're doing it now.
00:33:18.720
Let's go." And that's how my podcast came to be. So, it's Andrew Mason's fault.
00:33:26.320
I luckily inherited a podcast uh and that came with an audience. So, that was
00:33:32.640
very nice. But yeah, there have been many different iterations or seasons and life cycles of the bike shed. So, prior
00:33:39.279
co-hosts include Derek and Sage and I listened um regularly to Chris Tumi and
00:33:44.880
Steph Carrie if folks remember that era. Uh, and this was before I I worked at ThoughtBot. And I just was I thought
00:33:51.760
they were so just like relatable. Thought they were my Speaking of parasocial relationships, I had one. Um,
00:33:59.039
and yeah, then I got to um get to know them kind of uh once I started working
00:34:04.080
there. And uh Joel was the one who invited me to to kind of co-host the show with him. And um I was terrified.
00:34:14.159
uh it but it was one of those things that's like oh I think this is uncomfortable in like the good way that
00:34:20.079
people say is required to grow as a person. So um yeah that's that's uh how
00:34:26.800
it how it happened for me. Oh, our first episode was I think just
00:34:35.200
Jason and I would like hop on Zoom and talk about Rails and life and random
00:34:41.040
stuff. And he was trying to do like an online um meetup and it was just so hard
00:34:48.320
to get speakers every month and you know organize that and just get people to
00:34:53.359
attend like a Zoom call. Uh so he tried that a few times and we were just like
00:34:59.599
talking about those things over Zoom ourselves and we were like why don't we just turn it into a podcast and we can
00:35:06.480
just we can just have our therapy session together and uh record it and publish that on the internet and uh
00:35:13.680
that's really it. Like we didn't want to do any editing or anything. We just wanted to like sit down record and click
00:35:21.200
upload and like over time that got a little trickier. were like you have issues with audio one time or background
00:35:29.359
noise or something and you need you do need editing. Um, so over time, like we got Paul, thank thank God for Paul, our
00:35:37.280
editor, um, and our sponsors make that possible and everything. And so, um,
00:35:43.359
it's evolved over time, but it was literally just like, yeah, people might find this interesting, but like, who
00:35:49.359
cares what, like, it doesn't matter if anybody listens to this or not. We just,
00:35:54.480
we thought we would record it and click publish. That was it. I actually have a funny story. Sorry, I don't think I've shared this with you
00:35:59.920
before, but um I was talking to Britney Martin one time cuz uh she previously co-hosted or hosted the Ruby on Rails
00:36:06.720
podcast and I was telling her about all of my like fears about hosting the bike shed and just like you know uh just
00:36:14.160
really like I I did feel like I was kind of stepping into big some big shoes that I had to fill. And then she was like,
00:36:20.320
"Have you ever listened to remote Ruby? They just get on there and like talk and so you'll be fine." So yeah, that uh did
00:36:28.480
help. Well, that's good. Yeah. Yeah. It's just like part of it too is you want to share
00:36:34.000
your personality and you don't, you know, some podcasts do make sense to be
00:36:39.760
kind of scripted and everything and we like that's not us. We're just going to wing it and whatever. But it it's it
00:36:47.040
also helps people connect with you too or whatever. But that's also one of the funny things coming to a conference and
00:36:52.800
it's like someone will say hi and you're like uh it feels like we've been friends for a long time but um I don't know if I
00:37:00.560
know this person and it's like well they know you really well cuz they've listened to the podcast and they come up
00:37:06.880
and say hi. And so it's that's another like cheat code. You're like we're automatically friends because you've
00:37:12.800
listened to the podcast and that that's pretty fun. Yeah. It's never a weird thing for
00:37:19.359
someone to come up and tell me that they listen. It's always a good thing. It's always really sweet. It's always very flattering. So, if that is something
00:37:25.839
that you've been nervous about, like I promise you that people are mostly like completely just grateful that you're
00:37:31.520
talking to them, engaging with them about it. And uh Stephanie, it's kind of funny that you mentioned Britney Martin
00:37:36.560
because I was going to tell a story about her, too. Yeah, go for it. Um because this was I think this was two
00:37:42.560
years ago. I don't remember exactly when it was. um because she was running the Ruby on Rails podcast and I just had so
00:37:49.760
many questions for her about how to start a podcast because like even then I was like I wanted to do it just I had no
00:37:55.599
idea how and trying to find a niche that worked for me for a podcast was a
00:38:01.280
struggle and so she basically was like well why don't you come on to the Ruby on Rails podcast and then you can ask me
00:38:07.280
the questions that that you want to ask and so like that was my first experience
00:38:12.960
podcasting was being one of her guests on the Ruby on Rails podcast. And then like that
00:38:20.480
I I think I can say that literally was a huge help of inspiration of just kind of like because she had, you know, she had
00:38:27.280
that Google doc that she would send to guests of like the questions that you'd be talking about. So like, okay, I've
00:38:33.040
got a sense now for how I can do this, for how I can do prep, for how I can do the scheduling. and just having that
00:38:39.760
kind of guest introduction to podcasting before trying to do it on my own was a really big help.
00:38:47.440
Uh, so Mr. Alan Ridlehoover, apparently you have another question. Why don't you come on up here so you can use the mic
00:38:53.200
or Travis will be.
00:38:59.839
Thank you, sir. How do you get guests to come on your podcast?
00:39:06.640
like how do you convince them? You want to come on our podcast? I'd love to. You've already been on my podcast. So,
00:39:13.839
uh yeah, I'm I'm actually terrible at that. Vast majority of my guests have
00:39:18.960
either been friends or I was like, "Shit, I need an episode. Uh will you come on real quick cuz I don't have an
00:39:24.720
episode." Or they will ask me. They'll be like, someone will come and say, "Hey, I'm working on X and I really want
00:39:30.560
to talk about it. Can I come on your show and talk about because you have a good format for whatever?" And I'm like,
00:39:35.680
"Yeah, that's great. Uh, you did the work for me. Uh, I I need to get better at actually approaching people and
00:39:41.839
saying, "You should come on my show." Like, I've done it maybe once with Aaron, who still hasn't been on my show.
00:39:52.000
Oh my god. That's a little That'd be a little too much. Um, I've cold emailed people to be
00:39:58.240
on um uh the bike shed before and it works out well. I think kind of like
00:40:03.520
what I was saying earlier, it's it's it's flattering for people, you know, like I think most people actually feel really good to receive an invitation, so
00:40:10.320
in fact, you're doing them a favor is how I like to think about it. Um but
00:40:15.359
yeah, I I've been in the same boat where it has just been like, "Oh, shoot. We're recording and I need a a a friend." But
00:40:23.359
um when I do have a little bit more capacity, um and and I think you all spoke to it earlier, it's like who do
00:40:29.680
you get want to meet? and it's a really good reason to reach out to them. Um, and the worst that can happen is you
00:40:35.119
don't get a response, but I mean, most of us don't get responses to our emails sometimes.
00:40:41.200
Yeah, that's a really good point. Like, um, we've had we've had people on our
00:40:46.960
podcast that I've never dreamed of. like Adam Wan and Derek Civers was on our
00:40:52.480
podcast and we're like it's wild uh that like Derek Civers was on there and like
00:40:59.359
he did Rails a long time ago like really almost before I was even a Rails developer but I remember seeing his blog
00:41:05.760
post and stuff and you know to ask somebody to be on the podcast like you said it's uh an honor for them but also
00:41:14.000
like they get to share stories Um, and it's a benefit to their
00:41:21.119
audience, too. So, like we can invite somebody on like Adam Wavin and he's
00:41:26.160
like, "Well, cool. This is like we would just hang out and love to chat privately anyways, but we can have that
00:41:32.000
conversation." And then I get a lot more out of it than just that. Um, so he can
00:41:37.280
share that with his audience and stuff. And I feel like that's another reason why people seem like overly happy to say
00:41:44.079
yes. You know, it's I've been always surprised that like I don't know that anybody's ever really said like, "Nah,
00:41:50.400
sorry. I don't want to be on there." Like they feel honored and and it's always cuz like I just want to I have so
00:41:57.520
many questions. Like I want you on the show. Let's let's dig into all these different things like your background
00:42:02.560
and how did you get here and what are you doing and what are you doing next? Like it's just pure sort of interest
00:42:09.200
that they're like, "Well, yeah, of course I'll be on." So yeah, I was actually uh just thinking
00:42:16.000
about how in the email inbox for the bike shed, we actually got a lot of people saying, "I'll be on your
00:42:22.000
podcast." Like, "Have me on your podcast." But you know, a lot of the times this was just like SEO kind of
00:42:28.560
mostly uh spam. I did remember seeing one email about like a motorbike
00:42:34.000
mechanic or something who wanted to be on the bike shed because they they didn't know that the bike shed was
00:42:39.040
actually about tech and rails. Um, so yeah,
00:42:44.720
but uh but yeah, kind I think when you do have that platform, you're actually in a really good position to um uh to be
00:42:52.160
like, oh, like can I use this as an opportunity for other people and people usually are are are grateful for it,
00:42:58.480
including potential uh motorbike uh mechanics. Yeah. See, I don't have that problem. I
00:43:03.839
have a very SEO optimized name. Everybody knows what's going on on my podcast and what we're talking about.
00:43:12.720
Yeah. For me, because of the the nature of the podcast I was doing and I wanted to get a wide variety of opinions and
00:43:19.920
perspectives on RailsCom, uh I had to be really proactive about who I emailed and invited on the show. But every now and
00:43:26.319
then I would get like I'd have someone on the show and then they would give me referrals to other people. Um, probably
00:43:32.560
the principal uh example of this for me was uh again Nadia because she's
00:43:38.400
awesome. After I had her on the show, she connected me to Chad Fowler so that
00:43:44.079
then I could have him on the show and talk about like the whole inception of RailsCom and Ruby Central and how that
00:43:50.079
all started, which, you know, I came into the community late enough that I I didn't have any exposure to that. So
00:43:56.000
having a one-on-one conversation with Chad Fowler about how and why it all started on my podcast was like that only
00:44:03.359
happened because Nadia came on the show and then gave me a referral to connect me to Chad. And so uh the proactivity
00:44:10.640
has to be there. But at the same time when someone comes on the show if they've got if they hey you should go
00:44:16.000
talk to that person over there. Oh chef's kiss. Those those opportunities are amazing.
00:44:23.440
Any other questions from the audience? Uh, I think I saw this hand back here first. Yeah.
00:44:29.359
You have to put out an episode um every week or whatever your interval is. How do you come up with a constant stream of
00:44:36.640
fresh ideas that are interesting to the audience? I feel personally attacked by this
00:44:42.880
question because Joelle and I would struggle to have a fresh backlog of ideas every
00:44:49.680
single week. Um, but you know, you and I, we don't know if you're asking this for yourself or just kind of to share our
00:44:55.920
process with people, but we would get together every um I don't know, like every quarter or something and try to just uh bang out of a bunch of trail
00:45:03.280
cards to add to our list. But there was always like the oh, what's something that has felt relevant to us like during
00:45:09.200
that given week if we've been working on um that for client work. But uh yeah, I actually think that maybe we should have
00:45:16.000
uh taken an uh something out of the playbook of asking asking the audience of like what do you want to hear us talk
00:45:21.359
about on the bike shed? Um because you all you all seem to have lots of questions. I don't know where you all
00:45:26.480
were when we were trying to fill out fill out topics.
00:45:33.200
Yeah, I feel like we if if we don't have guests, then it it can be like a little
00:45:38.640
redundant week to week because it's like, you know, I'm still working on the same project I was working on last week.
00:45:44.880
Um, so that can be quite a challenge, but yeah, I don't know. Sometimes we
00:45:50.079
just like get worked up about something uh and we're like, we're going to rant about the asset pipeline this week uh or
00:45:58.079
whatever. But yeah, trying to, you know, keep an eye on like what's new in Rails or Ruby occasionally helps go down the
00:46:06.000
rabbit hole of some various things or whatever you haven't looked into and you're like, you know what, I'm not
00:46:11.680
entirely sure all the details of how frozen string literal work. So, I'm going to go look at that and like we can
00:46:18.079
talk about that this week or whatever. So, and thankfully we have this whole ecosystem of gems and things that like
00:46:26.160
there's always something new and interesting coming out from somebody that it's usually not hard to find
00:46:32.079
something. It's like, oh, I I don't know anything about acidic job. Maybe maybe I can go deep dive into that and talk to
00:46:38.480
Stephen and and get to to to know that a little bit better. You're lucky, too. You can just talk
00:46:44.000
about Stripe every episode and have something to talk about, right? Uh yeah, I'm I I'm lucky. I have the same format
00:46:50.400
for every show, same three questions. It's just up to the person coming on the
00:46:55.440
show to talk about whatever they're excited about. And that makes it really easy to just roll in keep the episode
00:47:01.359
rolling and everything. The three the three questions are there as just guard rails to keep us from going completely.
00:47:09.920
I think we have time for one more question. Andrew Mason over there.
00:47:15.520
Hey y'all. Big fan. Um, I wanted to ask y'all, what is one guest
00:47:21.440
from each of y'all's shows that has been um, very influential or that left a
00:47:26.640
lasting impression on y'all? I mean, I'll go first because I've already said her name twice, so we'll go
00:47:32.480
for the trifecta. Nadia Odo is amazing. She
00:47:38.240
was awesome human being, awesome story. You know, she came on my podcast. I she was one of the people that I ran this
00:47:45.359
idea for the podcast by last year and she was so supportive and amazing. Connecting me to Chad Fowler. Uh just
00:47:52.240
everything about my experience and interactions with her has been amazing. So that that's my pick.
00:47:59.520
Uh yeah, actually I think it's you. I think you have been on my show twice and the biggest the I mean honestly the
00:48:07.119
reason why those episodes are special to me is because we we end up talking about ADHD a lot which for a while I mean not
00:48:14.480
so much now but when I first started the show it was tough for me to talk about having it still felt bad to say I have
00:48:21.680
ADHD or to be medicated for something. um and being able to talk about it so openly with you helped me a lot and I
00:48:29.119
hope it helped people who listen to the episodes. So those those are some of my special episodes.
00:48:36.800
Um, I had Stepha Carey on the show as a kind of like comeback for like a return of her on the show and I don't know, we
00:48:43.520
got to be a little bit campy and be like, "Ah, Stephanie and Stephanie." But, um, yeah, I mean, like I mentioned,
00:48:49.680
as someone who got to listen to her on the bike shed with Chris um, long before I ever imagined I would be hosting the
00:48:55.440
show, it was it did feel really special. And, um, yeah, at that point, we were
00:49:00.559
just kind of getting to talk as as friends on the show. Um, and I also hope
00:49:06.640
that for listeners it was a really nice uh just a way to catch up with what she was up to.
00:49:17.839
You only have 300 episodes from it. And I do do I have to pick Andrew Mason
00:49:24.079
as well? I man there's so many so many
00:49:30.720
conversations but there are there's several people that I remember
00:49:36.960
like we recorded the episode and we hit stop recording and then we talked for
00:49:43.359
another two hours and I wish I had continued recording. Um, and like Jose
00:49:48.800
Baleim was one of them that we could have talked for 8 hours straight about
00:49:54.559
everything. And you know those are always like man there was such a good
00:50:00.000
conversation and we could have just kept going and going and I don't know sometimes you really deeply connect with
00:50:06.960
the guest like that and uh they're just super interesting and you just you know
00:50:12.559
you're like wow I can't believe we just had that conversation and I'm hungry and I've had to go to the bathroom for like
00:50:19.200
2 hours now but uh just incredibly grateful for those those moments and and
00:50:25.359
And I wish so badly that I didn't hit the stop recording button because it
00:50:30.400
would have been who cares if it's a 4-hour long podcast. You can watch Lex
00:50:35.839
Freriedman and his podcasts are ridiculously long sometimes and it's like if the conversation's good, just
00:50:42.720
let it keep going. So, all right. Well, we are out of time and
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we've got another panel coming in next. So, thank you all for joining us on the Ruby podcast panel today and hope you
00:50:54.079
enjoy the rest of the conference. Thanks for listening.