¶ Crossover Episode at RailsConf Detroit
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Code and the Coding Coders who Code it . I'm your host , ai Drew Bragg , and this week we have a special crossover episode from RailsConf 2024 .
A bunch of us podcasters teamed up to give you our take on RailsConf , the Detroit scene and more so join Elise from the Ruby on Rails podcast , julie from Ruby for All , jason Sweat from Code with Jason and Joelle from the Bike Shed . Julie from Ruby for All , jason Sweat from Code with Jason and Joelle from the Bike Shed , live from RailsConf in Detroit .
Enjoy .
We are live from RailsConf Detroit . My name is Elise and I live in the city .
My name is Drew and I do not live in the city .
That was not the right answer , what I thought I was supposed to say . I don't live in the city .
I thought we established I don't live in the city . I thought we established I don't live in the city .
You're supposed to go last and everybody else lives in the city . We are professionals . This is a professional podcast , obviously Very , very professional . You're listening to a special crossover episode here , live at RailsConf Detroit . I'm Elise . I host the Ruby on Rails podcast .
I am Drew . I host Code and the Code Encoders who Code it .
I'm Julie and I co-host the Ruby for All podcast .
I'm Joel Kenville . I co-host the Bike Shed .
I'm Jason Sweat . There is another person here .
And I host the Code with Chase podcast . Are we supposed to do last names I'm Drew Bragg and this went off the rails real fast Pun intended because we are at Railscom .
Did we lose the city bit ? What is the city bit ?
Alright , let's bring it back in . So we are live at Railscom Detroit . How's it going for everyone so far ?
It's going great . I'm having a blast . I'm enjoying seeing my friends in person . They did a wonderful job with this conference . There's plenty of water . There was a minor coffee incident this morning where there was a half hour gap where coffee was not available , but other than that it has been awesome so far .
Wait , did you go to a different conference where there wasn't enough water ?
Yeah , we're going to talk after this episode about what Atlanta was like . Was it a conference in the desert ? It was not . It's a long story , we're not getting into it . Julie , how's your conference going ?
I've been looking for water for an hour .
When I gave my workshop , I was surrounded by no exaggeration seven bottles of water .
There's so much water . Jason , how did your workshop go ?
Good , as I mentioned , there was a lot of water at the podium for me to drink in case I got extremely thirsty . But I gave a workshop on TDD for absolute beginners and I focused mainly on the specification development stage , which is something that is rarely almost never , talked about .
People think about TDD as something you do on a computer with code , but even before that you have to think about what you're even going to do , and it makes it much easier to write your tests when you've decided what your specifications are , because then you can just translate your specifications into tests . That was my workshop .
That's a really interesting point , because one of the things that I say about TDD is that , yes , it's a testing tool and it's verifying your code , but it's also a thinking tool . It's also a way to think about what you're going to do and how you would interact with it from the outside .
So it's interesting that you're saying , yeah , that's part of how you should be thinking about .
Testing is thinking about it at the specification stage . Yeah , so I warned everybody at the beginning . This probably will not be the workshop that you were expecting because we didn't actually do any TDD in the workshop . We didn't have time , I didn't know if we would or not turns out we did not , and that's fine .
We just spent the entire time on specifications and just real quick . The project I gave everybody was a recipe scaler . So you have a recipe . Let's say there's three-fourths cup of flour in the recipe , and then the user says they want to double the recipe . Well , how do you want to handle this ?
Three-fourths times two is we would express it as one and a half , but if you just literally multiply three-fourths by two , you get six-fourths . Do we want to add something to translate improper fractions into mixed numbers and one cup might become two cups . We want to worry about pluralization .
So I had everybody decide what's in the scope and not in the scope of this , and nailing down what's not going to be in the scope is just as important as saying what we are going to do , and that's a step that again gets skipped a lot . It's not going to be in the scope . It's just as important as saying what we are going to do .
Right , and that's a step that again gets skipped a lot . Yeah , we just have a relatively vague idea and then we jump straight into the coding . But this saves a lot of time if you decide what you're going to do before you start doing .
It Makes a lot of sense . Yeah , that's awesome . Definitely sounds like a workshop I should have attended and I didn't .
The good news is , this year they recorded all the workshops oh really , so we'll be able to watch the workshops . That is really cool . Workshops are always the priority for me . They don't record those , but then they said they're recording them this year , so I felt a little bit better about not being able to attend all of them .
Joelle , you're speaking on the last day , right ?
Yes , right , yes , tomorrow as of the day . Oh yeah , that's true . Yep , are you feeling good about it ? Feeling the nerves right now ? Okay , all right . Um , I'm giving a talk on building a dnd character sheet using turbo and how to layer in a little bit of dynamic behavior into a regular rails app very cool .
I'm excited for the dual nerd path you've got going on Dungeons , Dragons and programming In the same thing . It's going to be a nerd-heavy room . Looking forward to it .
The real question is what's the current character you're running ?
So for the talk , it is a gnome named Glitter Sense .
Okay , nice , I like that , I like that .
If you want to find out whether he's able to successfully take down his arch nemesis , the bandit chieftain , you'll have to attend the talk , okay .
Okay , which people who listen to this and are here right now , by the time this comes out , they'll have to go and see it on YouTube .
Yes , because the talks are also recorded .
Yes , as always .
Julie , you were on the program committee . What was that like ?
Or is like , or what is it like ?
What's your conference experience been like being on the program committee ?
That's a big question , because there's also the period of time up until the conference and then there's the duration of the conference . So what would you like me to answer first ?
Let's start with the duration of the conference .
How has your conference been ? Being on the program committee , yeah , so my role is speaker liaison and that means I'm responsible for by the way , did I give you my spiel ? I explained that I'm a speaker liaison and I let you know that if you need any help , you can reach out to me . You just got it .
So that's basically what I do for all of the speakers . We also put all the waters out for the speakers to ensure that the speakers are well hydrated , so you've had a lot of access to water this whole time . Yes , until I came up here for the podcast and I couldn't find the water fountain , unless you're telling the speaker liaison
¶ RailsConf 2025 and Community Interaction
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Yeah , there was an announcement made at the start of RailsConf and I think a lot of people have a lot of feels about it . I know I have a lot of feels about it . How are we feeling in this group ?
About this being the second-to-last RailsConf . The next , 2025 , will be the last RailsConf . They're going to focus purely on RubyConf . I think it makes a lot of sense . Obviously , there's a lot of feelings I'm bummed . I love RailsConf . I think it makes a lot of sense . Obviously , there's a lot of feelings I'm bummed . I love RailsConf .
It's an opportunity to see all of my friends and I've been going to a lot of them , so I'm definitely going to miss it . But I do think it makes sense with the popularity of RailsWorld , with how much other work that Ruby Central does . The best explanation I heard was RailsConf was not supposed to be something that Ruby Central does .
The best explanation I heard was RailsConf was not supposed to be something that Ruby Central does , because Ruby Central is supposed to focus on Ruby . So it does make sense . It is just from a nostalgia standpoint . It's sad that this is going away and we're going to have to do things differently after next year .
But it does make me very excited for 2025 because it'll be a jump .
Yeah , I think for me . I have a lot of feelings about it because I think for me RailsConf has been a thing pretty much the entire time I've been a Rails developer . It feels a little bit like end of an era kind of . But also we still have RubyConf and we still have all the friends .
The real RailsConf is the friends we made along the way and we still have all the friends .
The real rails tomf is the friends we made along the way . Yep , how about you , jason ? How are you processing the thoughts and feelings ? Well , it's a lot happening in the world .
There's a lot of new conferences in 2024 . There was a period of time where there's hardly any conferences . I wish there was more conferences . Now it's like I wish there wasn't so many conferences , because you can't go to all of them . Yeah , it's true . It's true . Yeah , it's an ever-moving grade . Things come into existence and fade away . It happens .
Yeah , I think change is the only constant thing . It's exciting to see a lot of the local conferences taking center stage , and it's a bit of a change in role for Ruby Central as well .
They still manage the sort of national RubyConf , but I know that they're wanting to step into more of a supporting , mentoring role for these regional conference organizers rather than organizing another second big national one every year .
Yeah , I'm very excited for that kind of support to see what that generates . Because Jason mentioned , it's kind of tough when you see all of these conferences happening and you're like I want to go to all of them but there's so many I can't . But if we can get better regional support , there won't be as big of a travel burden .
If you've got a regional conference happening in a local area , you'll be able to attend a conference in your backyard , hopefully without it waiting for RubyConf to come to your city .
I think that there's a nostalgia factor about RailsConf , but I also have a lot of nostalgia for the period of time throughout the 2010s where there were regional conferences everywhere . You had Steel City , ruby , nickel Ruby . You had tons and tons of conferences .
It seemed like every metro area had their own regional conference and we didn't have that for a few years , that kind of died down .
And now we have it again and there's so many conferences and it's a little bit like be careful what you wish for , because I'm so excited about that , but then I'm also bummed because I can't possibly go to all of them , because that would just be what I did all the time . So I'm excited .
Julie .
RailsConf 2022 was my very first conference and it was also where I met my co-host in person and how Ruby for All was born , and it was also where I met actually a lot of you .
So I'm not very good at expressing my feelings , but I would say sad that it is going to be the last one , but I'm also happy that I had the opportunity to have met everybody .
So , moving into a different topic , we're all . Obviously we have podcasts and people know who we are . How has it been getting to interact with the community ? I ?
love the talks and then sort of everything that happens around it , talking to people just in the random hallway at lunch , or even last night at the speaker dinner hallway at lunch , or even last night at the speaker dinner .
Not only are these really interesting conversations , but I'm taking all these notes for topics that will then become episodes of the bike shed . This is going to make a good episode , I know , oh , this is going to make a good episode . Someone makes a point in a talk . I'm like oh , I would love to discuss this idea further .
Or I'll have a conversation with someone like oh , the audience would love to discuss this idea further . Or I'll have a conversation with someone like oh , the audience would love to hear this . So I'm stocking up for the year . Yeah , that's what I'm doing too .
Reaching out to speakers like hey , do you want to come on the show and talk about this ? And then also reaching out to other podcasters about doing crossovers and stuff . I'm definitely using it as like a lead generation type thing for the podcast .
Yeah , I've been running into people throughout the conference and being like , oh yeah , I should have you on the podcast or have you on the podcast again , and at least you and I arranged to have a crossover type thing and I begged Drew to go on his podcast and he said , no , not unless I get money .
This did not happen . This did not happen at all . You are welcome whenever you'd like . Drew paid me to be on a show . I have not paid anyone anything , except for Paul , because he edits my show .
It's pretty clear that we're all just having a great time .
Yes , yeah , and I think the pacing this year is really good . There's not as many tracks as years past . I think it's only three tracks and then it's an hour slot , but the talks are supposed to be 45 minutes . They're coming in between half hour and 45 minutes , so there's a decent amount of hallway track built in .
So if you are someone that predominantly attends talks and ends up missing out on the hallway track , you're getting the hallway track built into your day and I really appreciate that . I feel like I've seen a lot more people in the hallway than in years past .
I've really enjoyed a lot of the talks . I'm really happy with how the program committee programmed the conference .
Great work Julie . Great work Julie .
Thank you , it was all me Just kidding for the record .
Let's talk about Detroit a little bit .
Yeah , let's talk about Detroit .
Yeah , the city . Have you guys gotten a chance to go out and do any stuff yet ?
I got to try Detroit pizza for the first time
¶ Pizza Preferences and Detroit Explorations
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I have to do that before I leave . I love pizza . I've never had pizza in Detroit before because I've never been to Detroit before , so that is on my list . That's a good call . I have not really explored the city aside from walking between the venue and my hotel because this is a pretty quick trip for me .
Normally I buffer my conference trip with some see the city time , but this trip had to be a little bit closer on a travel so I'm going to try to get out of the conference area a little bit .
But parts of the city I have seen have been pretty nice , a lot better than the way media would have you view detroit those parts do exist , yeah , but there's a car museum right in the hotel yeah yeah , I saw that it was pretty cool .
The gm yeah , I stayed at the hotel right across from this with my family . We didn't even know there was a car museum right across the street .
Yeah , has anybody noticed that everything is shaped like circles ?
Yeah , there are no direct paths anywhere .
Yeah , it's maddening .
There's about 10 entrances and exits and we have yet to experience all of them .
Yeah , If you want a great time and a super enjoyable experience , get Andrew Mason to answer the question why don't they have hard corners in casinos ? It's great there's 3M YouTube rabbit holes that you go down . He will talk your ear off for about an hour about why they don't have corners in casinos . Highly recommend .
I highly recommend I have a guess , but we'll save that for another time . Elise , you mentioned Detroit . Detroit , do you live here ? No , I don't . I am not in the city . For anyone who's not familiar , what is Detroit-style pizza ?
The crust is thicker and the cheese kind of goes all the way to the edge . It's a square . It's very good . It's kind of a deeper pan . It's a deeper pan . Yeah , it's like a deep dish style pizza . It's very tasty . I went to Buddy's , I think , and I got this is going to be how I get canceled . I got pineapple and jalapeno .
I'm here for a little pineapple on my pizza .
Yeah , Wait is there something wrong with pineapple on pizza ? Allegedly , allegedly , but those people are wrong . Yeah , those people are very wrong . Andy told me I had to find an Italian and apologize for putting pineapple .
Well , I'm an Italian and you don't need to apologize . Andy can fight me , so I'm going to eat pizza tonight .
Okay , there's this place .
I don't know if it's super well known . I think maybe it's kind of well known in detroit . It's called sapinos . Okay , they're one of the times that I visited detroit in the past because , by the way , dear listener , I am from michigan . I live just across the state from here , not in the city , not in the city , not in a city not in .
I live in technically a village For real . I don't know why that's so funny .
I don't know why it's funny , either it's just funny .
There's like huts and stuff . But Supino's is not Detroit-style pizza , it is Neapolitan-style pizza or something like that . And last time I went there I don't know if you guys have ever had this , but it was pizza with an egg on it- that's a new one for me .
How was the egg cooked ?
Not very much . Oh , interesting , yeah , just crack the egg on the pizza , put it in the oven and the egg gets partway cooked . But it's still pretty gooey , so not for everybody , but I personally like it .
So at this point most everybody knows that I'm originally from Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh has a old church that's now like a brewery slash pizza place and they have a pierogi pizza where they put pierogis on pizza and it is amazing . Basically just all carbs and starch but it's delicious .
Well , here's the thing about pizza . Pizza can be a food in and of itself right , it's cheese and sauce and dough but it can also be used as a vessel for other foods . That's why you put toppings on them . There are no wrong toppings for pizza . Name one Lettuce . You've never had a taco pizza that has lettuce on it and it's delicious .
Is there such a thing as a taco pizza that has ?
lettuce on it and it's delicious . Is there such a thing as an ice cream pizza ? There is actually . Yeah .
There are dessert pizzas where the crust is more like a graham crackery thing and it's got ice cream on it . Okay , in Europe they put corn on pizza . Yeah , again , it can serve as a vessel for eating other foods . Sure , pineapple's a fruit and salish are some pizza . Tomato is a fruit and it's the primary ingredient on the sauce , in the sauce .
In the sauce . It is the sauce . Well , there's other things in the sauce .
You can put tomatoes on it too , joelle . Any controversial thoughts or feelings on pizza ?
Joelle is really quiet about this pizza discourse and that makes me nervous about what his pizza opinions are .
This is what is actually going to get me canceled . I have tried Detroit style pizza , but I tried it in New York , and now I think
¶ Hot Dog Consumption and Conference Anticipation
New Yorkers are going to hate me for this . Yes , and Detroit .
I am originally from New York , and no , that's not how you do that .
Speaking of New York , what's the deal with Coney Island hot dogs in ?
Detroit ? Oh , I don't know . So I'm a vegetarian , so I know it's a thing .
But I had a vegetarian Coney hot dog last night Where'd you go .
Those were vegetarian .
Well , at the speaker dinner . Yeah , not what I was saying .
Yeah , there is some Detroit-style hot dog , kind of like there's a Chicago dog , but I don't know what Detroit is .
It was basically a hot dog and it had meat on it . It was sort of like a chili dog , but it wasn't straight-up chili on top , it was just some meat and other things . It was delicious , I just didn't know . It was a thing , drew how many hot dogs do you think you could eat ?
Over what period of time ? One continuous sitting . You could sit there for hours if you need to .
When you say one continuous sitting , is it just that you can't get up , or do you have to always be eating a ?
hot dog . Well , let's say you can't take a break of more than 10 minutes .
Oh , geez , I could die Like . I have this problem where I actually have to log all the food I eat in order to maintain the weight that I want . You know how you eat , and then you're like I'm full , I'm good now , and you push the plate away . That doesn't happen with me .
I don't stop eating until the food is gone and then I go find more food because I never feel full , I never feel satiated and I don't know why , but unless I am actively sitting there going . Okay , I just had a slice of pizza . That's this many calories . Cool , I'm good for this meal . I'll just eat until I'm sick .
I have the opposite problem as you , which is that I'm on the bike so much that I basically have to force myself to get enough calories to offset what I'm burning .
I have the same exact thing as you do If there's food in front of me , I'll eat all of it , and if more food appears , I'll eat all of that too , yep .
So how many hot dogs can you eat in one sitting ?
If I was actually trying to eat as many as I could , maybe like 10 . That's it ? 10 ? That's it ? I feel like I had . How many did you eat ?
I feel like I had 10 last night at the speaker dinner , plus the falafel and the fries and a lot of alcohol . You know what this is leading to .
We're not having a hot dog eating .
Okay , Joel , how many hot dogs do you think you'd eat ? Two on a good day .
I was going to say Two , you could eat three hot dogs .
I bet you could eat three , I'd feel terrible afterwards . I didn't say you wouldn't .
He did not say how many could you eat until you felt bad . He said how many could you eat In one ?
sitting . I would need to go to the hospital after I ate as many hot dogs as I could , but I'd still do it , Julie . How about you ?
I think I could eat three .
Only three .
Yes , well , I feel like we all said that You're asking the two smallest people on the planet . My son when he was five , could eat four hot dogs . Well , that's a five-year-old . They have bottomless stomachs .
There are a couple of places near me that do veggie dogs and I feel like every time I go I get at least three . So I usually get yeah .
So I think probably how many do you think you could eat max ?
Max , three full-size hot dogs . Last night they were cut in half .
Oh no , they're like full-size hot dogs , how many could I eat max ? I feel like I get to five and I'd be like , okay , I want to stop .
I can respect that . You two need to work on your hot dog consumption .
Wait , but how many have you all had the most of at once ?
Four is probably the max that I've had in one time .
Okay , I don't know if it counts , but every summer hockey season my team does a cookout after a game . So we'll play a full hockey game and then we'll go and we'll cook burgers and dogs and I will eat at least seven or eight hot dogs and a couple of burgers , but that's post playing hockey . I think that skews the parameters a little bit .
Yeah , for me it'd be in a grilling situation . So I have a few hot dogs , burgers , some steak , a brat or two . I'm hungry now when are we going for ?
dinner . We're now all food bloggers .
This is now a food podcast Food and the fooding fooders who food it .
Return to computers . Go ahead , Joelle .
Food for all . Food for all , yeah .
The food shed .
The food on plates podcast .
The food to do is Encode with food . He already does that . He does his soup episodes .
Oh yeah , so you've already got your food with jason joelle I think that you need to start a podcast , and we already have . You have a controversial food opinion that you discuss every time . Okay , call it . Oh , you'd be adjacent oh , that's so good .
That's so good . Yeah , let's put it back to code for a little bit wait , I haven't shared how many hot dogs .
Oh , I had two , you had two , okay , okay and you actually ate .
Last night I I had two of them .
Max , you've ever had anything ? Oh two , yeah .
Amateur hour . You've got to bump those numbers up , you know what I could eat endlessly .
As long as you kept putting them in front of me , I could eat them forever Honey , sriracha , brussels sprouts , just like . Keep putting them in front of me , I would just keep eating them .
Where do you get such a ? Thing ?
such a thing Some restaurants . There's some restaurants in Denver that do pretty good Brussels sprouts .
I make them at home usually . Sometimes it's on my list now . I'm ready for that recipe in the next newsletter .
Yeah , by the way , what Drew is referencing is , every month I send a snail mail programming newsletter . It's fantastic , but the thing about a snail mail letter is you can't unsubscribe , and so , instead of being targeted , like I am , with my email newsletter , because I can't talk about whatever , you'll unsubscribe .
But I can talk about recipes , what I'm doing on the farm , all that stuff .
This tree stump that you're working on , yep .
There was a tree that fell and that covered several issues .
I enjoy your newsletter , though , because it is nice to get a piece of mail that isn't a bill or just something in the mail . It was a period of time where we used to get mail in the mailbox , then we got email and now email's all spam . I actually sit down and I take time out of my day to read your newsletter because it's this physical thing .
I have the envelope , I sit down and I open the envelope and I read it and it's great . It's such a nice way of getting information rather than like , oh , look another email , I'll read or scroll through this one .
So how does one subscribe to your physical newsletter ?
You can search for Nonsense Monthly , which is the name of the newsletter . Okay , and it does live up to its name . But yeah , you just sign up and then you start getting in the mail every month .
Okay , I'm going to do that . I'm going to do that as soon as we're done recording Nice . So what is everybody looking forward to for the rest of the conference ?
Big thing for me is I'm giving a talk tomorrow . That's the big thing that's hanging over me . I have a character who is a big part of the talk . At the speaker dinner last night , some of the other speakers were convincing me to actually be in character . Do it ? Yeah , I have a couple sessions , I think , in the hotel room tonight practicing the voice .
Okay , nice , awesome , drew . What are you excited for in the rest of the conference ?
I am excited for board game night tonight . That is always a highlight of Ruby and Rails conferences getting to go play board games with my programmer friends . The last day of the conference has a bunch of great talks that I'm looking forward to going to .
Marco is doing a talk , joelle is giving a talk that I'm very excited for and , yeah , I'm looking forward to going to some good talks and just seeing everyone before I run out the door .
Wait , aren't you also emceeing ?
tomorrow . I am also emceeing the lightning talks tomorrow , so I will be doing that , but I'm trying to think about it , so you were not looking forward to that . Well , I'm looking forward to there being lightning talks , since I heard that there almost wasn't lightning talks .
But I think that the lightning talks are an amazing contribution , especially for people who haven't given talks before . It's a lot of scholars that do the lightning talks , so it's not only their first conference experience , but it's their first time speaking in front of that large of a group of people .
I'm really happy that the lightning talks are happening and I'm happy to be a part of it and help make sure it happens . But I also get very nervous when I'm speaking in front of a large group of people , so I'm just trying not to think about it . But thanks for bringing it up . Julie appreciate it .
There's a couple of talks that I'm looking forward to . There's one about Hotwire , and then there's's one . I'm looking at the schedule right now . There's one on Action Mailbox , too , that I'm like .
Yeah , Cody's talk is going to be great . He gave me a Philly RB or the first version and it was awesome , and he said he's done a ton of work to it , so very much looking forward to his .
Jason , I brought a chess set with me , oh nice . And I played Vladimir Dementyev the night before the conference and we played two games and it would be impolite for me to say that I kicked his ass .
So I don't want to say that Now we have to put the parental advisory explicit content on our podcast episodes . Great work , Jason . That's fine . I curse on my podcast all the time .
We'll just keep it out , and then I'm also looking forward to this evening I'm hosting a dinner that I'm calling a language exchange dinner .
I saw that .
Yeah , for people who speak a language other than English , we're going to get together and learn about each other's cultures and languages and stuff like that , and then also just bumping into people , seeing people I haven't seen in a long time . It's always really nice , julie .
Julie is looking forward to not running around like a headless chicken anymore . Well , Julie , since you're on the programming committee , please relay to everyone else how pleased at least I am with how this conference shook out . I've had a great time thus far . I don't see that changing drastically . Very pleased about how much water there is everywhere .
Very well hydrated . Great conference Looking forward to 2025 .
Same . Thanks so much for doing this crossover episode . It's so wonderful to see all of you and to get to see all of my Ruby friends and all of my Ruby podcasting friends .
And to record in person .
And to record in person , which we basically don't get to do very often .
I never do that .
That's it . That's the end of the podcast .
That's how I end my podcast . You got a thing , Joelle .
On that note shall we wrap up . That is the final , See you all , next time Bye , everyone Bye .