It was a lot less like the end of Carrie than the decor might indicate
So, I was at Brighton Ruby this week. It’s my first time going to a Ruby meetup of this size before. I’ll confess, I think I’ve been scarred by going to larger AWS events and being set upon by marketing and sales people at every step of the way. In my previous experience, smaller Ruby meetups have always been about… Well, groovy people doing groovy things and helping other be pretty groovy, if I’m honest. I make no apologies for my use of the word, “groovy”.
Anyway, Brighton Ruby did not disappoint. Yes, there were some corporate recruiters there; my current employer Henry Schein One being one of them. Kudos to them for: First of all, sponsoring an event that’s promoting and evangelising Ruby as something they are investing in and encouraging others to do so. Secondly, sending me there as a Rubyist and not a recruitment shill. If there’s anything more likely to inspire me to act as a recruitment shill, it’s that! Sidenote: Henry Schein One are a pretty groovy employer of Rubyists and other flavours of developer. If you don’t believe me, they’re listed as one of the Sunday Times’ Best Places to Work 2025. Find out more here. Who knew writing software in the dental services arena could be so… ful-filling? (ba-dum tish! I’ll get me coat…)
Anyhoo, it was the first time meeting most of my colleagues in the flesh and it makes such a difference being able to interact in meat-space for a change. Everyone was suitably awesome. I always worry when a group of devs get together. We’re notoriously not the most gregarious of breeds. I’m certainly not. However, in this instance, everyone was lovely. Indeed, on finding an abandoned, cash filled wallet, one of my colleagues did entirely the right thing and tracked down the owner who was utterly delighted to find it hadn’t been hijacked.
Content-wise, there was a broad spectrum of topics. I will, however, call out the opening notes from Andy Croll, who was the only male speaker, BTW, about conduct at the convention. Yes, the code of conduct is given in advance on the convention’s site, but having Andy actually give out his personal mobile phone number for people to contact if they felt unsafe or needed assistance is, in my experience, unprecedented. I definitely got the impression that Kicking A Nazi Out As Soon As They Walk In was the rule du jour. Awesome. Intolerance to intolerance is right up my alley.
The talks themselves ranged from mind blowing mathematical philosophy, through practical tips on securing a Rails application at the Rack layer, narrowing our eyes with a certain degree of suspicion at AI, to pointing out that we really should be doing accessibility better in the development space. The talkers ranged from members (and president) of the Rails Foundation, to a single dev CEO, to a non-coder designer. We even had a small video message from Matz. If I had a takeaway from the overall set of talks it would be this: Slow down. Think more. Be better. This is 100% my bias (ha! One of the talks was about how bringing biases to AI, makes for AI with biases).
In short, I’ve come away reminded about why I found such joy in coding in Ruby compared to other languages: The other people in the space, as much as the language itself, and the diversity of those people and opinions. Yeah, kinda want to dig in to some deep Ruby and see if there’s a way to contribute and give back. Maybe even sign up at First Ruby Friend…