Remote Ruby

Hosted by Chris Oliver, Andrew Mason, David Hill

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Episodes

354

Latest episode

Jun 2026

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About the show

Rubyists having conversations and interviewing others about Ruby and web development.

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60 recent

June 12, 2026Episode 25955 min

[The lost episode 259] All Right, Rant Time - Debugging

[This episode from February 2024 was never published and recently discovered]In today’s episode, Andrew kicks things off with a rant about tackling developer experience tasks at Podia, wrestling with GitHub actions, and Heroku deployment woes. Then the conversation takes a turn to the importance of debugging, the power of bash scripting, and the challenges of naming in programming, with Chris mentioning DHH’s insights from a live stream. They discuss Chris’s travel plans for RubyConf in Australia, other conferences coming up, and reminisce about their childhood love for trains and Thomas the Tank Engine. The episode wraps up with Chris and Andrew sharing advice and tips on writing conference proposals (CFPs) and the value of diverse speaking styles and personalities for engaging an audience. Tune in now to hear more!LinksONCE/Campfiredebug.rbGitHub CopilotRubyConf Australia-April 11-12, 2024RailsConf 2024-May 7-9, 2024-Detroit, MISarah Mei-“What Your Conference Proposal is Missing”Ruby for All Podcast-Episode 50: The Art of Conference Speaking with Kevin Murphy[SFM] We like to party (YouTube)Ultimate Skyrim (YouTube)RailsConf 2023-Teaching Capybara Testing- An Illustrated Adventure by Brandon Weaver (YouTube)Chris Oliver X/TwitterAndrew Mason X/TwitterJason Charnes X/Twitter

June 5, 2026Episode 3541 hr 9 min

Revise Auth and Podcasting Plans

Chris and David cover a lot of ground in this episode, starting with Chris’s experience teaching a Rails workshop for Frontend Masters in Minneapolis. Along the way, they dive deep into Rails authentication, Devise, Authlogic migrations, Chris’s ReviseAuth gem, password security, session handling, and the hard tradeoffs of maintaining open source tools. The episode wraps with big podcasting news: David is taking over The Ruby on Rails Podcast! Hit download now to hear more! LinksJudoscale- Remote Ruby listener giftMinnebarRuby 4.0.5 Released ReviseAuthThe Ruby on Rails PodcastChris Oliver X/TwitterAndrew Mason X/TwitterJason Charnes X/Twitter

May 29, 2026Episode 35341 min

Rails World Tickets, New JavaScript Package Managers, and Security Worries

Chris, Andrew, and David kick things off with a detour through Dungeon Crawler Carl, Rails World tickets, and conference travel before diving into developer tooling, package manager security, and the latest Ruby ecosystem updates. The conversation covers everything from Hotwire-style UI patterns and pnpm/Corepack setup to Jeff Dickey’s new package manager, the RubyGems malicious package attack, Ruby 4.0.4, Shopify’s Rubydex, Claude/Codex chatter, and the increasingly strange future of AI agents and delivery robots. Hit download now to hear more! LinksJudoscale- Remote Ruby listener giftDungeon Crawler Carl Dungeon Crawler Carl RPG + UnstoppableMaciej Mensfeld XAubeJeff Dickey Xen.devThe Hacker News- RubyGems Suspends New Signups After Hundreds of Malicious Packages Are UploadedOne engine, many tools—Introducing Rubydex (Rails at Scale)Ruby 4.0.4 ReleasedFrontend Masters Workshop with Chris Oliver: Getting Started with RailsHoneybadgerHoneybadger is an application health monitoring tool built by developers for developers.JudoscaleMake your deployments bulletproof with autoscaling that just works.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Chris Oliver X/TwitterAndrew Mason X/TwitterJason Charnes X/Twitter

May 22, 2026Episode 35254 min

Blue Ridge Ruby Insights & Experiences

In this episode, Chris, Andrew, and David are back together with David starting out giving a recap of Blue Ridge Ruby and his renewed motivation to contribute to open source. The group discusses the value of smaller single-track conferences to hallway conversations, and lightning talks. The conversation then shifts into real-world Rails and Stripe lessons, including workshop prep, validation decisions, webhook recovery, subscription edge cases, and the growing complexity of payment integrations. Hit download now to hear more! LinksJudoscale- Remote Ruby listener giftGetting Started with Rails with Chris Oliver (Frontend Masters Live Interactive Workshop)Ruby Conferences 2026HoneybadgerHoneybadger is an application health monitoring tool built by developers for developers.JudoscaleMake your deployments bulletproof with autoscaling that just works.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Chris Oliver X/TwitterAndrew Mason X/TwitterJason Charnes X/Twitter

May 15, 2026Episode 35149 min

Stripe Changes, File Upload Quirks, Scaling Sidekiq

Chris and Andrew catch up after Andrew’s whirlwind “vacation-ish” road trip before diving into Stripe’s latest announcements, usage-based billing, merchant-of-record pricing, Rails file upload quirks, Active Storage image handling, Sidekiq queue strategy, and the future of RubyGems. They also discuss browser form behavior, preserving and deleting attachments, image variant performance, and how to think more clearly about background job priorities. Hit download now to hear more!LinksJudoscale- Remote Ruby listener giftDungeon Crawler CarlEverything we announced at Sessions 2026 (Stripe Blog)Scaling Sidekiq at Gusto (Medium)Scaling-Sidekiq -GitHubNate Berkopec post on LinkedIn-Running ContainersChris Oliver X/TwitterAndrew Mason X/TwitterJason Charnes X/Twitter

May 8, 2026Episode 35039 min

Direct Routes and Data Queries

On this episode of Remote Ruby, Chris, Andrew, and David kick things off with dentist trauma, gold star stickers, and fiber internet. The conversation centers on Rails direct routes, why they can be more powerful than helpers, the upcoming Rails World CFP and ticket rush, how AI is becoming more practical inside real engineering teams, a reminder to fill out the Rails survey, and Chris’s continued work expanding the Rails Getting Started Guide into a more realistic e-commerce tutorial with wishlists, reviews, ratings, and product images. Hit download now to hear more!LinksJudoscale- Remote Ruby listener giftHow to use Direct Routes in Rails (GoRails)On Rails Podcast- Brian Scanlan: Building AI-First at Intercom2026 Ruby on Rails Community Survey (Planet Argon)Rails World -Sept 23-24, 2026, Austin, TXHoneybadgerHoneybadger is an application health monitoring tool built by developers for developers.JudoscaleMake your deployments bulletproof with autoscaling that just works.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Chris Oliver X/TwitterAndrew Mason X/TwitterJason Charnes X/Twitter

May 1, 2026Episode 34950 min

Behind the Scenes: Developing Podias New Version

Chris, Andrew, and David open with some classic confusion over what day it is then dive into Podia’s gradual rollout of a major new app version, including how the team is handling migration, feature flags, dogfooding, and eventual cleanup. From there, the discussion turns to underrated Rails routing features like direct routes and resolve routes, a newly merged Rails query command, observability improvements through Hatchbox’s AppSignal integration, and the ongoing pain of CSS build tooling in Rails apps. They also touch on conference season and their upcoming talks. Press download now to hear more! LinksJudoscale- Remote Ruby listener giftDirect RoutesInstance Public methods-direct (name, options = {}, &block)Instance Public methods-resolve (*args, &block)GitHub-Query command for read-only database queries #57156App Signal for HatchboxBlastoff Rails-June 11-12, 2026, Albuquerque, NMFrontend Masters Workshop-May 26, 2026-Getting Started with Rails (Chris Oliver)Toronto Tech Week- May 25-29, 2026HoneybadgerHoneybadger is an application health monitoring tool built by developers for developers.JudoscaleMake your deployments bulletproof with autoscaling that just works.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Chris Oliver X/TwitterAndrew Mason X/TwitterJason Charnes X/Twitter

April 24, 2026Episode 34839 min

Ruby Central Restructuring

This BREAKING NEWS episode is a candid reaction to Ruby Central’s latest shakeup, with Chris, Andrew, and David unpacking leadership departures, financial strain, the cancelled gala, and what all of it says about the organization’s direction. The conversation moves beyond the headlines into bigger questions about trust, transparency, community values, conference strategy, RubyGems sustainability, and whether Ruby Central can rebuild credibility by involving more of the community in what happens next. Hit download now to hear more! LinksJudoscale- Remote Ruby listener giftA New Chapter for Ruby CentralRubyConf 2026- July 14-16, Las Vegas, NVHoneybadgerHoneybadger is an application health monitoring tool built by developers for developers.JudoscaleMake your deployments bulletproof with autoscaling that just works.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Chris Oliver X/TwitterAndrew Mason X/TwitterJason Charnes X/Twitter

April 17, 2026Episode 3471 hr 22 min

Joined by John Athayde

Chris and David welcome guest John Athayde, who runs the branding and UX consultancy, Meticulous. They dive into John’s unusual path through the Rails world as a designer, front-end developer, consultant, author, and UX thinker. The conversation moves from early Rails history and The Rails View into a broader discussion about why designers need to understand implementation, how AI is changing product and UI work, where component-based design is headed, and why browser support is still one of the messiest parts of modern web development. Hit download now to hear more!LinksJohn Athayde WebsiteJohn Athayde XJohn Athayde BlueskyMeticulousBuild Software Like Pixar Makes Movies with John Athayde-The Swift Kick ShowThe Rails View: Create a Beautiful and Maintainable User Experience by Bruce Williams and John Athayde (O’Reilly)Quick ui.sh demo- Adam Wathan XThis is the most user -unfriendly form UI- @tkm_hmng8 XDuck Hunt - Wes Bos XRails World 2026-Austin, TX September 23-24HoneybadgerHoneybadger is an application health monitoring tool built by developers for developers.JudoscaleMake your deployments bulletproof with autoscaling that just works.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Chris Oliver X/TwitterAndrew Mason X/TwitterJason Charnes X/Twitter

April 10, 2026Episode 34638 min

Governance, Security Flaws, and AI Tools

This episode of Remote Ruby opens with stories of exhaustion from a sleepless week. Then, Chris, Andrew, and David spend most of the episode unpacking two big themes: trust and governance in open source, and the growing mess of software security and AI-assisted development. They dig into the new Ruby Central write-up on the RubyGems/Bundler fracture and question whether it actually clarifies the path forward, then pivot into the Axios npm compromise, supply-chain risk, and how fragile modern package ecosystems can feel. Then, they go into a wide-ranging discussion on AI coding, bloated production apps, image-performance headaches, CSS/rendering quirks, and why teams may need to rethink APIs, CLIs, MCPs, and markdown-first docs as agent traffic keeps growing. Hit download now to hear more! LinksJudoscale- Remote Ruby listener giftRubyGems Fracture Incident Report Bundler has moved to the RubyGems organization (GitHub)Mitigating the Axios npm supply chain compromise (Microsoft Security blog) Garry Tan XThe Missing GitHub Status PageHoneybadgerHoneybadger is an application health monitoring tool built by developers for developers.JudoscaleMake your deployments bulletproof with autoscaling that just works.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Chris Oliver X/TwitterAndrew Mason X/TwitterJason Charnes X/Twitter