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Rails World 2024 was a breath of fresh air for me. Connecting with inspiring people, learning from brilliant minds, and hiking through the venue's backyard reawakened my passion for the Rails community and software engineering.
As a father to a new baby girl, my focus for the past year has been primarily on family, but Rails World reminded me of the joy and wonder that this community brings. It energized my desire to engage more, build new relationships, and even plunge into public speaking 😬 maybe.
Coming into the conference, I was intimidated by the wealth of knowledge the other Rubyists had, but it didn't take long for me to fit right in. It also inspired me to reach a higher level in my career.
Overview of Rails World 2024
One of the highlights of Rails World 2024 was exploring what's coming in Rails 8. One standout feature for me was the focus on simplifying deployments with Kamal 2, as DHH is trying to push away the reliance on cloud services. We at Planet Argon support some pretty complex applications and pipelines, so streamlining these processes with built-in or closely integrated Rails functionality is something I'm excited to explore further.
I noticed some common themes throughout the conference, such as the new features of Rails 8 and the empowerment of developers.
Key Takeaways from Sessions and Workshops
There was a lot of buzz around SQLite being production-ready, which was surprising but intriguing. SQLite is something I haven't played with since I first started learning Ruby on Rails. Rails 8 also pushes developers to take ownership of the entire pipeline— encouraging us not to shy away from understanding servers and deployments. I also expected AI to be a central focus at the conference, but aside from a few talks, it wasn't as dominant as I thought.
Ignacio Alonso's lightning talk about AI-driven text editors was intriguing. I especially liked the idea of editors who can grasp the full context of your application, not just individual files. So when the AI gives you text recommendations, it's truly using the code standards in place in your application.
I'm also eager to explore Progressive Web Applications (PWA) more deeply, particularly after using Rails World's communication and scheduling tools. I noticed a mobile bug, so if it's open-source, that may be my contribution to Hacktoberfest.
Another theme that caught my attention was the desire for developers to handle their own application authentication. Devise has primarily worked for me until I needed to make an edit. That's when we had to dive into the weeds of strange behaviors. Having Rails handle the basics of authentication intrigues me, even though I'm hesitant to stray from Devise.
As for the booths themselves, thank you, AppSignal, for the shirts. My daughter will be rocking hers.
Also, I could spend all day playing Sjoelbak and eating Stroopwafels. And I REALLY want one of those framework laptops.
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Memorable Speakers and Panels
Aaron Patterson brought humor to the event, as usual. I loved it.
DHH's keynote about encouraging developers to dive deeper into servers really hit home. Early in my career, servers were intimidating, but over time, I've come to see them as critical pieces of understanding the whole development process. I'm still not proficient, but many of my fears while interacting with them have been fading away.
Jenny Shen's talk about the importance of not being like the TTC and handling regular application updates also resonated—I'm inspired to help my team standardize upgrades and implement similar automation. Having a tool that gives us a PR of the output of the Rails update commands sounds amazing.
A strange man named Robby Russell had a great talk on steering out of technical debt. It was almost as if I knew the guy! Kidding aside, I'm always learning new things from Robby, and I appreciate that his insights are woven into our everyday work at Planet Argon.
Ridhwana Khan inspired me to dig into the Rails Gem.
Miles McGuire reminded me of my days in my previous company, where we would have long-hour calls trying to fix issues live, sometimes through the weekend. I don't miss that at all.
David Henner's talk made me think more critically about the data structures I use and how they can impact performance in subtle but significant ways.
Julia Lopez gave an insightful talk about how she tests the numerous integrations Harvest works with, including Stripe. They test the connectivity and every possible interaction with each system—whether it returns data, non-existent values, and more. While she couldn't share all the details, they were testing for over 25 different scenarios.
I didn't get to watch Obie Fernandez' talk on Rails AI, but I'm anxiously waiting for the video to come out.
Finally, I attended a workshop on VIM with Chris Powers' excellent guidance, which sparked a renewed interest in mastering it.
Networking and Community Building
One of the most rewarding aspects of Rails World was connecting with other developers. From my fellow Hispanics, whom I apologize to because technical talk in Spanish does not register in my brain, to new friends from the opposite end of the world, seeing the community's diversity was empowering. There were developers from 57 countries all together at the same place.
I also met Robby and another fellow teammate, Will Weber, in person!
I had some fantastic conversations with developers from all walks of life—people running companies, running Ruby events in major cities, maintaining open-source AI projects, or working at big names like Shopify. I even struck up a friendship with some BMXers from the Netherlands, which added a fun, unexpected layer to the conference experience. Shout out to everyone I met at the AppSignal and Shopify events for making the experience unforgettable!
Reflections and Inspiration
One major takeaway was the importance of staying current with application updates. At Planet Argon, we work with clients stuck on older versions and under a mountain of technical debt. However, these talks inspired me to push harder to implement more regular upgrades and efficient testing practices. The discussions on testing gave me ideas on how we can improve coverage in our applications. I also want to ensure we're not slowing performance using inefficient data structures. One of the first things I did when I got back was work on our test coverage and highlight some of the slowest tests using bundle exec rspec --profile 10.
I've also been inspired to present things at work and have more technical conversations. Maybe one day I'll build up the confidence to speak publicly 😀.
How This Impacts Our Work at Planet Argon
We may not be able to utilize some of the new features in Rails 8 immediately. Still, I'm particularly interested in exploring how Solid Cache could optimize cache storage and how Propshaft might simplify asset pipeline management. Integrating these improvements where applicable as our applications evolve could enhance system performance and maintainability. I'm also looking forward to upgrading my personal projects to Rails 8 to take full advantage of these new features and incorporate them into future development.
Conclusion
Rails World 2024 was more than just a conference—it was a much-needed reboot for my personal and professional life. The invaluable insights I gained from the inspiring people I met left me feeling more connected to the Rails community and energized to keep learning and growing. I'm eager to put some of these lessons into practice, both in my work and my personal projects.
Looking ahead, I'm hoping to contribute to the Rails gem and other Open-Source projects through #hacktoberfest and attend more meetups in my city to stay engaged with what's happening in the community. The event reignited my passion, and I'm excited to continue building relationships and sharing knowledge with others.