Two weeks left until Blue Ridge, snag a ticket if you haven't yet! blueridgeruby.com

I chatted with Ifat Ribon about her upcoming @blueridgeruby.com talk, "Yes, &…: Ruby’s Secret Talent for Improvisation." I was curious to hear how studying improv has benefited her career in software development and consulting. Full episode: www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4w6...

Nice night

Ruby Consultants Quarterly Gathering · Zoom · Luma A chance for Ruby Consultants to work together and share insight or brainstorm ideas together.

Update: Well, I seem to have hit a limit with the Google Calendar invite we've been using. So I've set up a Luma event, and folks can register here: luma.com/i56rzldo

Hey Ruby consultants, freelancers, and agencies! Quick reminder: we have the Ruby Consultants Quarterly Gathering (over Zoom) on Monday, 1pm ET! Come talk shop with other Rubyists. (It's not widely publicized, so if you don't have an invite, DM me and I'll add you.)

7. The lack of certainty about where things go from here, and what my work looks like in a few years, is as interesting as it is unsettling. I'm as curious as I am concerned. I think I can live with that.

6. The possible future where fewer people need my services (because they can build and maintain software themselves) seems as likely as the possible future where more people need my services (because there's a greater appetite for building software as starting costs shrink dramatically).

5. My enjoyment of (aka addiction to) flow state has been replaced by enjoyment of tireless, rapid conversational feedback.

4. While I miss the satisfaction of working through a hard problem and solving it on my own, I also enjoy getting to both solutions and learnings faster.

3. At the end of the day, some human has to be responsible for the software that other humans rely on. I don't see us getting around that.

2. This job is still hard. There's still so many decisions to be made, so much hard thinking to be done. It still takes a lot of judgement and experience in a wide range of areas.

1. A rising tide lifts all ships. Even if I'm paying more for developer tooling than I've ever paid in my career, so is everyone else. And it's been worth it, and it hasn't broken the financial model of my freelancing/consulting business. I don't think it will.

In the last few weeks, I've realized I'm not as freaked out about AI as I was at the beginning of the year. I've been throwing myself into the tools and using them extensively in all my projects. And after some time getting acclimated, I feel mostly settled about the following things...

Introducing 2026 Sponsor Scout Monitoring

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www.scoutapm.com

Organizing @blueridgeruby.com makes me want to start (now) two businesses: a CFP management SaaS, and a conference badge production service.

Yeah, that makes sense. It seems like the choice would be dependent on the assessment of current project risks and the bet you're making about the future and what decoupling costs you may have to pay in the future.

I chatted with David Paluy about his upcoming @blueridgeruby.com talk, "LLM Telemetry as a First-Class Rails Concern." One thing that struck me was just how essential telemetry is for understanding costs. (Those tokens ain't free!) Full episode: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UjP...

Just got my ticket to @blastoffrails.bsky.social! Looking forward to hanging with Rails folks in Albuquerque.

😄

😅

Yeah, that's probably true ☺️

I try not to lie, but sometimes I do...like when I prefix my branch name `spike/`

Harvest!

Just crossed the 200-hour mark for @blueridgeruby.com. I logged 250 hours the first time around, back in 2023. People have asked, "Don't you think it will take less time, doing it again?" And I'd thought *maybe.* But looking at the current rate, I'm right on target for 250 again.

One Month Left

No joke, just one month left to go before BRR 2026!

I chatted with @johnathayde.com about his upcoming @blueridgeruby.com talk, "Learning from Permaculture: Sustainable Software Development." We've both studied it, but I wanted to hear *his* reasons for applying permaculture to software development. Full episode: www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNy6...

Designer and Ruby dev Joshua Wenning has been working with me on some @blueridgeruby.com design projects. And today we wrapped up the Ruby Embassy stamp design! Just made the order, can't wait to see it! (Design from Joshua and example mockup on the passport book below.)

Blue Ridge Ruby Haiku Giveaway Submit a haiku for a chance to win a ticket to Blue Ridge Ruby 2026!

We've got some haikus going! Login with GitHub and vote for your faves! 😄
haiku.blueridgeruby.com

We are fundamentally ambivalent creatures. (Or maybe I should speak for myself.)

So much of life seems to be "make it your problem" followed by "now, let it go."