The Ruby on Rails Podcast

The Ruby on Rails Podcast

The Ruby on Rails Podcast, a weekly conversation about Ruby on Rails, open source software, and the programming profession. Edited by Redrum Creative.
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Resumen del episodio

What happens when the tool you rely on disappears? For Eduardo and Camila Souza, the shutdown of Pivotal Tracker became the motivation to build Pivotal Tasker, a Rails-based alternative inspired by the project management workflow they missed. They discuss reconstructing the experience from memory and reference material, adding classic and modern interfaces, and integrating coding agents to help create and work through stories. The conversation expands into their move from consulting toward building products. Eduardo and Camila describe Chamber Builder, an all-in-one platform for chambers of commerce, and a custom sales CRM that brings calling, recordings, transcripts, and AI-generated follow-up suggestions into the browser. Across these projects, they explain how observing real workflows reveals opportunities to replace expensive, fragmented tools with simpler software. AI helps their small team move faster, but they remain firm about reviewing its output and keeping their applications understandable and…

Episodios

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Episode 559: From Consulting to Rails Products with Eduardo and Camila Souza

What happens when the tool you rely on disappears? For Eduardo and Camila Souza, the shutdown of Pivotal Tracker became the motivation to build Pivotal Tasker, a Rails-based alternative inspired by the project management workflow they missed. They discuss reconstructing the experience from memory and reference material, adding classic and modern interfaces, and integrating coding agents to help create and work through stories. The conversation expands into their move from consulting toward building products. Eduardo and Camila describe Chamber Builder, an all-in-one platform for chambers of commerce, and a custom sales CRM that brings calling, recordings, transcripts, and AI-generated follow-up suggestions into the browser. Across these projects, they explain how observing real workflows reveals opportunities to replace expensive, fragmented tools with simpler software. AI helps their small team move faster, but they remain firm about reviewing its output and keeping their applications understandable and…

04 nov. 2026
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Episode 558: Background Batches with JP Camara

JP Camara joins the show to explore background job coordination, real-time collaboration, and the opportunities he sees for Ruby and Rails as AI changes how developers work. First, JP shares the story behind bringing batches to Solid Queue, from an early proposal to the conference conversations and community interest that helped move the feature forward. He explains how batches let developers treat a group of jobs as a unit, track success and failure, and trigger callbacks when processing finishes—making it easier to coordinate workflows that span many background jobs. JP also discusses the implementation challenges behind the feature, including database transactions, jobs deferred until a transaction commits, and reducing the performance overhead of tracking batches. He describes his related work on Mission Control Jobs, which gives developers a visual way to inspect batch progress, investigate failures, and find the jobs involved. The conversation then turns to YRBY, JP’s project for adding real-time…

28 oct. 2026
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Episode 557: Jessica Kerr and Avdi Grimm

What does it mean to be a software developer when writing code is no longer the central part of the job? Jessica Kerr and Avdi Grimm join David Hill for a conversation about the changing work of software engineering—and how to navigate that change without losing the curiosity, satisfaction, and human connection that drew us to it. They begin by examining why AI-assisted programming differs from AI-generated art and entertainment, including the role of tests and measurable feedback in evaluating software. From there, Jessica and Avdi discuss the challenge to developer identity when tools can handle more of the implementation, and the opportunities that opens for building useful things, exploring neglected projects, and focusing on product decisions. The conversation gets practical with a look at overseeing AI-generated code. Avdi describes his use of specialized reviewer agents and repeated auditing, while Jessica explains how developers can define correctness, provide feedback loops, and get clearer…

21 oct. 2026
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Episode 556: Building What Matters with Tom Rossi

Recorded at Rails World, David sits down with Buzzsprout co-founder and CEO Tom Rossi for a wide-ranging conversation about AI, software development, product thinking, and the changing role of developers. Tom shares his perspective on the rapid pace of change in the software industry and why today's AI transition reminds him of the early days of the internet—only moving much faster. They discuss how AI is already changing development inside Buzzsprout and Higher Pixels, from adding AI-powered features for podcasters to making it dramatically easier to understand, maintain, and extend older Rails applications. But as the cost of building software falls, Tom argues that another skill becomes increasingly important: deciding what is actually worth building. David and Tom discuss the shift from thinking primarily as coders or engineers toward thinking as makers—understanding customers, identifying valuable problems, and choosing work based on the impact it can have rather than simply because it can be done. The…

14 oct. 2026
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Episode 555: Herb and ReactionView with Marco Roth

Recorded at Rails World, Marco Roth joins the podcast to discuss the rapidly evolving future of the Rails view layer. Marco explains Herb’s integration into Rails 8.2, how its parser and tooling improve the experience of working with HTML+ERB, and how Herb creates opportunities that weren’t previously possible with traditional Rails templates. The conversation then turns to ReactionView, Marco’s approach to bringing fine-grained reactivity to Rails applications while allowing developers to continue writing familiar ERB. Marco explains how ReactionView can identify dynamic portions of a template, track dependencies, and update the browser without requiring developers to manually wire together Turbo Frames, Turbo Streams, and Stimulus controllers. He also traces these ideas back through StimulusReflex, Hotwire, Stimulus LSP, Turbo LSP, and Prism, explaining how those projects helped make ReactionView possible. David and Marco also discuss what increasingly capable AI coding agents mean for developer tooling.…

07 oct. 2026