In this episode of 'Ruby for All', Andrew and Julie discuss drawing inspiration from MC Escher through games like Monument Valley, to dealing with the intricacies of Discord roles and authorization, and the importance of immediate and continuous feedback through tools like Google Docs during talks. Then, guest Andrew Atkinson joins us and shares insights from his new book, “High Performance PostgreSQL for Rails,” detailing his journey from initial drafts to publishing and his shift towards independent consulting. He emphasizes the significance of understanding database operations, schema desig ..read more

In this episode of 'Ruby For All', hosts Andrew and Julie welcome guest Kevin Murphy, Software Developer at Pubmark and member of the RailsConf program committee. The discussion kicks off with Andrew and Julie catching up, then transitions into an in-depth conversation about the RailsConf planning process. Kevin and Julie, the Speaker Liaison, share insights into the workings of the program committee, the selection criteria for conference talks, and the challenges and rewards of organizing RailsConf. Additionally, Kevin elaborates on his role in the committee, the theme for this year's confere ..read more

In this episode of "Ruby for All," hosts Andrew and Julie take us through a journey of debugging, from dealing with weather-induced moods to squashing tricky bugs in their code. They touch on the challenges of debugging without audio guidance, leveraging logs for troubleshooting, and the logical approach to handling errors in Ruby or JavaScript. They dive into the variations of different debugging tools, such as Pry and the Rails Logger, and the complexities of transitioning to new debugging gems. Andrew recounts a perplexing bug only replicable in production and details his process and conclu ..read more

In this episode of Ruby for All, Andrew and Julie chat about their recent experiences, including a ski trip with challenges due to a storm, and discuss burnout and returning to regular podcasting. Special guest, Ryan Caldwell, a software engineer at GitHub working on Copilot, joins the conversation to discuss his work, particularly on chat-related features of Copilot.  Ryan shares insights on programming languages, leaning into his transitions between Ruby, Java, and Go, and navigating the differences between dynamically and statically typed languages.  The conversation covers the be ..read more

In this episode of Ruby for All, Andrew and Julie discuss the intricacies of callbacks in Active Record models. They talk about their experiences, the pros and cons of using callbacks, and the issues they faced. They also share some helpful use cases for callbacks, including user authentication, logging and auditing, custom slug generation, and the concept of “hooks.”  Also, Andrew and Julie review their ways of dealing with callbacks testing and debugging in a Rails application. Press download now to hear more!  [00:02:32] Let’s learn about “callbacks” in Rails as Andrew explains w ..read more

In today’s episode, Andrew and Julie dive into the topic of onboarding onto new teams.  Julie discusses her latest venture of switching teams, and Andrew sheds light on the innovative “Shape Up” method by Basecamp that’s shaking things up in the project management world, and why he prefers this over Agile. There’s talk of the dreaded technical debt, and how to keep it in check, plus the perks of pair programming and the need for a solid support system at work. Besides tackling these workplace issues, they also touch on the challenge of maintaining personal relationships in a remote workin ..read more

In this episode of Ruby for All, Andrew and Julie welcome special guests, James Garcia, Eric Halverson, and Caleb Mitchell, all part of The Agency of Learning run by Dave Paola. Today, they share their unique journeys into software development, ranging from music to technical support backgrounds, and their involvement in The Agency of Learning.  They discuss the value of the Ruby community, the joy of coding in Ruby, and the complexities of keeping up with Rails in a fast-paced tech environment. The conversation also touches on the importance of community in learning and how to get involv ..read more

In this episode of Ruby for All, Andrew and Julie reconnect after a three-week break to share how they spent their vacation and their plans for the new year, as Julie talks about her family’s newest addition, a Whippet named Lucy, and Andrew getting plenty of rest, some rock climbing, and a hot yoga class. Then, they dive into the topic of burnout, sharing their personal experiences and strategies for managing burnout effectively. They discuss looking forward to Ruby 3.3, upcoming conferences, and a collective aim to level up their careers. Join Andrew and Julie as they kick off the new year w ..read more

In this episode of Ruby for All, host Andrew kicks things off with a warm welcome and well wishes to his absent co-host, Julie. Then he welcomes guest, Bhumi Shah, a self-taught web developer who transitioned from doing low-level embedded software for implantable medical devices.  She shares her journey of learning Ruby on Rails, her love for teaching, and her approach to learning as well.  Bhumi also talks about her ideas for creating accessible educational content, such as an audio-only technical content platform and a unique onboarding concept for junior developers joining a new c ..read more

In this episode, Andrew and Julie chat with guest John Crepezzi, a veteran in the Ruby community, founder of All Aboard Bootcamp, and currently a Software Engineer at Jane Street.  Today, they discuss John’s experience running a coding bootcamp, share insights on teaching programming, and emphasize the importance of community in learning.  Additionally, they explore functional programming in OCaml, highlighting how functional programming can be implemented in Ruby.  Also, John dives into the potential impact of AI, particularly language models like ChatGPT, on education and soft ..read more