Remote Ruby

In this episode, the hosts discuss generated columns and callbacks in Rails databases, including their benefits, limitations, and testing challenges. They also explore the HTML Pipeline library, GitHub markdown processing, and Rails rendering of rich text associations. Personal anecdotes and reminiscing about early GitHub days add humor to the conversation.

Rails Hackathon with 37 outstanding submissions and winners announced. Chris talks about his Signalman project. Discussion on hybrid applications, Hotwire Turbo Native, and the upcoming Rails 7.1 and Strata release. Excitement about the Rail World conference. Exploration of developer-friendly features from Stripe, including Workbench beta.

In this episode, the hosts dive into the concept of Single Table Inheritance in Ruby on Rails, discussing use-case scenarios, advantages, and limitations. They also tease an upcoming big project reveal and share their experiences with managing projects. The conversation takes a humorous turn with jokes about Andrew's tendency to speak before thinking and Jason's new job title. They also touch on topics like the decline of Reddit, affordable tech solutions, and creating compelling YouTube thumbnails.

Chris and Jason spice things up with vibrant discussions in the absence of Andrew. Jason reveals the challenges and triumphs of his Job Boardly project, emphasizing user-friendly editing tools like Imperavi's Article. The duo debates the merits of various text editors, including Basecamp's Trix. They dive into the intricacies of JavaScript and Tailwind CSS, tackling issues with animations and customization. Plus, they remind developers of Ruby's vast capabilities that extend beyond Rails. Tune in for a delightful mix of tech talk and personal anecdotes!

On today’s episode, Chris and Andrew have an early start and catch up on their lives. Then, they dive deep into the latest developments in the Rails community, including the release of Rails 7.0.6, bug fixes, and changes to Active Record.  They share their experiences with GitHub deployments, documentation issues, and how they navigate through its challenges. They discuss the benefits of MySQL and Postgres, as well as the ongoing advancements in Postgres, specifically Crunchy Data’s contributions.  Chris and Andrew share their views on working in different company sizes, the joys of learning new things, dealing with burnout, and the slower pace of feature shipping in larger companies. There’s a discussion on Reddit’s recent actions, its impact on subreddit moderations, and the discontinuation of the Reddit API. We’ll also hear about Chris’s cooking adventures, experimenting with different flavors, and making some Texas Twinkies. Hit download to hear more! [00:02:00] Chris and Andrew talk about the release of Rails v7.0.6 with bug fixes and changes in libraries like Action Cable and Active Record, including subqueries and associations with polymorphic relationships.[00:06:10] Andrew is curious about the GitHub deployment stuff and expresses his desire to create GitHub deploys from Heroku. They talk about the complexities of setting up GitHub deployments and the lack of clear information from GitHub, and how the documentation with Checks API can be confusing to set up. [00:09:49] Chris discusses the challenges of figuring out GitHub’s deployment process and the lack of documentation. He expresses frustration with the lack of clarity and support for smaller accounts. [00:14:41] PlanetScale is brought up and its association with MySQL, and they discuss the benefits of MySQL and Postgres, and the new features and advancements in Postgres, including Crunchy Data’s contributions and the potential use of Postgres in web environments. [00:17:43] Chris shares a fun story about working on implementing jump server support in the new Hatchbox.  They encountered unexpected complexities with the net-ssh gem to address the problem. [00:29:51] Chris emphasizes the importance of being mindful of memory usage and performance trade-offs and how it becomes more critical when building large-scale products. [00:31:59] Andrew mentions that releasing features can be challenging and Podia is currently facing that challenge with releasing a feature while also building onto it. He emphasizes the importance of coordination, communication, and learning from code to recognize and solve problems faster. [00:33:46] Chris reflects on his experience working at a consulting agency and how it allowed him to learn quickly by facing different projects and finds joy learning new things as a programmer. [00:34:43] We hear Andrew talk about feeling stuck in a job, comparing small companies which offer more challenges, to big companies where employees get stuck doing the same tasks, and Chris tells us he’s happiest when learning new things and how it accelerates burnout.[00:35:57] Chris discusses the challenges faced by big companies when it comes to feature shipping due to the need to ensure existing users are not negatively impacted, and Andrew highlights the varying levels of impact when breaking code and emphasizes the importance of being able to find and fix bugs quickly. [00:39:00] We hear about Chris’s mad co Chris Oliver X/Twitter Andrew Mason X/Twitter Jason Charnes X/Twitter

In today’s episode, Jason, Chris, and Andrew kick it off with a discussion about their work environments, seating options, and Andrew’s hilarious story about going to IKEA, pencil behind his ear, tape measure, and his Mustang, to buy a new couch. We shift gears (see what we just did there) to the recent buzz surrounding the Rails World event and some speculations about Rails 7.1 features, and Chris tells us about Rails Hackathon that’s coming up in July.  From there, we move into a more personal space as Jason shares his experience of shifting from coding to manager and the associated challenges, the productivity debate, and how we handle our time allocation between coding and managerial tasks.  We wrap up with reflections on career progression, with Jason’s return to coding from management acting as an inspiration for others. Hit download now for an episode filled with humor, technical talk, and personal journeys in the world of coding. [00:00:58] Chris reveals he has acquired a new chair that belonged to his wife, leading to a discussion about comfortable seating options available on Amazon. Then the conversation turns towards their cars, as Andrew shares a funny story about his Mustang, which turns into a debate about the Mustang Mach-E.[00:04:42] There’s a conversation about the recent excitement surrounding the Rails World event which sold out very quickly. If you missed out getting tickets, you can sign up for RubyConf in San Diego.  [00:07:15] Andrew wonders why it sold out so fast, and Chris and Jason believe it’s the first official Ruby on Rails event, the size of the event, and the involvement of the creator of Rails as contributing factors to the excitement. They also speculate about the release of Rails 7.1 and other upcoming features in the Rails ecosystem. [00:11:00] Andrew shares a trick he stole from Ben that invalidates the bundle cache and re-downloads every gem on the system from scratch whenever Bundler is run. Chris brings up a Tweet that humorously tells Linux users to remove the French language pack, which is a trick to delete all files on the system. [00:11:56] Chris brings up another Tweet at GoRails about Homebrew issues related to using backups from an Intel Mac on an Apple silicon Mac. [00:12:54] Chris tells us they launched their new updated version of the Rails Hackathon site which will be going on July 28-30, 2023.[00:16:56] Jason shares that he’s been more focused on project management than coding recently. Chris expresses that he still measures his productivity by how much code he wrote even though he does more management tasks now, and Andrew confesses to having backfilled his GitHub commit history. [00:21:01] Jason shares his experience of shifting from being a coder to a manager, and Chris questions Jason about the division of his time between coding and managing.[00:22:52] Chis shares how his productivity is also affected by various distractions and struggles of getting back into the zone after being interrupted.  [00:24:04] Jason explains that Podia was very supportive of his transition to management and understood that his output would be different. He found it challenging to adjust and decided that he wasn’t interested in management at that point in his career and prefers problem-solving with code. Andrew shares his greatest output comes from working with other people.[00:27:04] Jason shares how he thought the only way to advan Chris Oliver X/Twitter Andrew Mason X/Twitter Jason Charnes X/Twitter

In this engaging conversation, Andrew, a recent code refactoring enthusiast, and Chris, a programming aficionado, dive into their journeys in Ruby programming. They share the complexities and satisfaction of optimizing code, discussing the elegance of removing conditionals. The duo also explores Ruby Infinity and its impact on performance. They reflect on childhood music preferences while humorously contemplating starting a band. Plus, Jason reveals plans for a Southeast Ruby conference, emphasizing the importance of community in programming.

In this episode, Chris and Andrew have a candid discussion about their programming experiences, the demanding nature of their jobs, and the joy and complexity of coding.  They have a conversation on challenges with dependencies, the new branch settings on GitHub, TypeScript, JavaScript, and the functionality and benefits of using JSDoc. They also dive into the importance of flexibility in code, the evolution of coding practices, their preference for smart editors that provide real time updates, and the topic on the use of AI tools in programming is discussed and whether AI assists or inhibits the developer’s thought process. Also, Andrew tells us about Prefab, a cool Rails tool he recently discovered and found very useful. Hit download to hear more! [00:00:35] Andrew tells us he has an app to monitor his activity and sometimes finds himself working for 11 hours straight, and Chris reminisces about the early days of learning to code and the excitement of late night programming. [00:04:58] Chris was struggling with dependencies in his work and considers writing his own basic glob functionality. [00:11:38] The guys discuss the utility of new branch settings on GitHub, and Andrew tells us he made his own commitlit config and updated his prettier config on his GitHub. [00:12:52] They move onto the topic of JavaScript and TypeScript, bringing up JSDoc, and Andrew explains the functionality and benefits of using JSDoc. He shares his discovery that JSDoc can be used to add TypeScript functionality without writing TypeScript, primarily using type comments. [00:16:47] Chris notes that this approach allows for middle ground between JavaScript and TypeScript, enhancing editor hints without the complexity of a fully typed language. [00:22:50] Chris tells us his journey began in college where he learned multiple languages such as Ruby, Python, C, and Visual Basic. He emphasizes the importance of flexibility in code, allowing it to evolve over time. [00:25:18] Andrew shares his dislike for Sorbet and talks about his preference for Solargraph in VS Code, a language server that uses YARD docs for typing.  He’s found this useful in his work, particularly when refactoring. [00:27:55] We hear about the greatest code Andrew’s ever written, and Chris and Andrew discuss the use of dynamic languages and how it’s crucial not to lose the essence of languages like Ruby by over-imposing typing. [00:33:49] Chris discusses the use of AI tools in programming, such as GitHub’s Copilot, and notes that while they’re useful in generating codes, but they may limit the developer’s thought process since they tend to rely on AI’s suggestion without thinking through the problem. [00:37:26] Andrew explains why he showed Chris some documentation he generated from ChatGPT 4, and they both agree that AI-powered tools can make documentation more efficient. [00:46:53] Andrew talks about his experience with Product Hunt, and a very useful Rails tool he recently discovered called prefab.cloud, which allows developers to target their Rails logs for specific user issues.[00:53:12] Chris and Andrew discuss the difficulty of dealing with Twitter API and Reddit API pricing, lamenting the high costs for developers. They also talk about their frustrations with companies that acquire and shut down successful third-party apps instead of supporting them.Panelists:Chris Chris Oliver X/Twitter Andrew Mason X/Twitter Jason Charnes X/Twitter

On this episode of Remote Ruby, Chris and his GoRails team is taking over since Jason and Andrew are traveling. Today, Chris has joining him Kent Crutchfield, who’s a customer service expert for GoRails, and Collin Jilbert, who’s a Ruby/Rails Dev at GoRails.  As we kick off this episode, we start by exploring a captivating debugging situation involving GoRails servers, the C language, and the operating system Kernel. Chris and Collin discuss their ongoing Hatchbox integration project, and Kent’s expert handling of complex tasks. We also hear about Chris’s new interactive forum series coming out soon, some advice for aspiring coders, and there’s a discussion around tools like GitHub Copilot and their potential impact on developers’ growth.  We’ll wrap things up with Kent sharing his favorite part about joining the team, the rewarding experiences he’s had, and the sheer love for his work in Ruby and Rails.  Hit download to hear much more! [00:00:58] Kent shares his background in customer support and how he started working at GoRails. [00:02:49] Chris and Collin discuss a challenging debugging situation they had to solve involving the C language, GoRails servers, and the operating system Kernel. They also remember a previous conversation regarding the complexities of CSS optimization at scale based on a talk from a GitHub employee. [00:07:50] The team has been working on Hetzner integration for Hatchbox, and despite the complexities of Hatchbox, Kent finds the challenges interesting and satisfying to overcome. He also highlights there are GoRails beginner-friendly content and new learning paths.[00:09:51] Chris is close to completing a new forum series for their learning path, transitioning from a blog format. The forum has topics, posts, and other features. He plans to add videos to their learning videos to their learning content in the future.[00:13:54] Collin and Chris discuss the importance of a practical approach to feature building, starting with the basics, and evolving through identifying potential issues and edge cases as they arise. [00:16:38] Kent suggests sticking to Rails defaults as much as possible and avoiding AWS for beginners. He also mentions that a lot of issues arise when users try to implement fancier features. [00:18:16] They discuss the SSL configuration complexity, Cloudflare’s role as a proxy, and its implications on the application. Chris mentions the exceptional performance of Caddy in automating the SSL certification process and migrating problems related to domain set-up. [00:25:28] Kent shares some advice for aspiring coders to be consistent, read books, watch instructional videos like GoRails, and build something, no matter how small. Chris emphasizes the importance of learning how to debug.[00:30:59] Collin expresses concern that tools like GitHub Copilot might hinder developers’ growth by offering ready-made solutions without a thorough understanding of the problem, and Chris suggests that Copilot is useful for repetitive tasks. [00:33:22] The discussion evolves around the importance of understanding the underlying code versus just getting a task done. Chris and Collin imply that this depends on the programmer’s immediate goal, whether it’s to ship the product quickly or to build something that won’t break in the future. [00:39:10] What’s been Kent’s favorite thing about coming onto the team? He tells us it’s learning Ruby and Ra Chris Oliver X/Twitter Andrew Mason X/Twitter Jason Charnes X/Twitter

The conversation kicks off with quirky reviews of shows like 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' and 'Seinfeld.' Exciting news emerges with the introduction of Ruby 3.3 Preview 1, highlighting performance boosts and new features. They tackle the hurdles of implementing autosave and error handling in Rails applications, while comparing Ruby with Laravel. The pals share laughs about the nuances of software development and discuss the challenges of using serverless functions and various hosting options. Tune in for insights, humor, and tech revelations!