RailsConf 2025 Recap

RailsConf 2025 🔗

RailsConf recently wrapped up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The 2025 conference, and also the RailsConf event itself is now over as far as we know it. This post is meant to highlight the great work from all involved. I hope you’ll seek out the full videos of all the sessions that interest you once they are available. Unfortunately, I couldn’t be everywhere, so this covers what I saw.

Preparing 🔗

Just as I’ve done in the past, I joined Ruby Central members for the CFP coaching sessions. We helped others with their proposals in small groups. This was a great opportunity to meet with prospective speakers and workshop ideas to submit for the conference. I’m glad that Ruby Central runs these events. They’re a great opportunity for prospective speakers. If you’re considering submitting to a future RubyConf, I hope you’ll join a session.

I received the honor of being selected as a speaker for the final RailsConf. I followed my preparation playbook as usual. I took one deviation. I usually consider some smaller public audience to test it on first. This is both for feedback and to gain comfort running it for a crowd. This talk is very specific to RailsConf and me. Instead I kept it between myself and a very tight group of collaborators.

In a fitting tribute, I booked a seat on the train to travel to RailsConf.

Day 1 🔗

365 Days Later: Moving from Java to RoR and how it changed everything 🔗

John Dewsnap filled us in on the story that started last year at RailsConf 2024. Once FlexCar deployed their Rails monolith, what happened next?

Derailing Our Application: How and Why We Are Decoupling Our Code from Rails 🔗

Fito Von Zastrow and Alan Ridlehoover spoke about scaling your monolith’s code without being tied to Rails’ framework fundamentals.

Yes, You Can Work on Rails & any other Gem 🔗

Kasper Timm Hansen shared insights on how to approach new code with openness and curiosity while leveraging what you already know.

Evolution of Rails within RubyGems.org 🔗

Samuel Giddins and Nick Quaranto shared the history of RubyGems along with details of where we are today.

Ruby Internals: A Guide For Rails Developers 🔗

Matheus Richard presented a fantastic representation of how various low-level Ruby components that we may take for granted work and come together to serve our Rails applications.

The Rails Features We Loved, Lost, and Laughed At 🔗

Robby Russell took us on a trip to explore parts of Rails that are gone. With his help, we ensured they aren’t forgotten.

Closing 🔗

It’s July in Philadelphia. I had no interest in being near a fireside. Instead I joined friends for the rest of the evening.

Day 2 🔗

Rails Then, Now, and Next: A Conversation with our Community 🔗

Aaron Patterson, Sarah Mei, Evan Phoenix, Nadia Odunayo, Chad Fowler, Eileen M. Uchitelle and Marty Haught participated in a panel discussion on Rails, but mostly on the environment that surrounds Rails.

What can we do together? A facilitated community-building workshop 🔗

Stephanie Minn brought together people from disparate backgrounds to share their experiences, find common ground, and make connections.

Ruby Podcast Panel 🔗

David Hill, Drew Bragg, Stephanie Minn, and Chris Oliver once again welcome competition and encourage you to start your own podcast, if you’re so inclined.

Day 3 🔗

I was happy to have so many colleagues join me this year at RailsConf. We found ourselves all sitting together before the opening keynote.

The Keynote of Keynotes 🔗

Aji Slater provided a touching retrospective that tightly integrated the messages of all keynotes available to share from past RailsConfs. By doing so, Aji provided fresh competition for anyone’s favorite keynote: theirs.

How 10 years of RailsConfs can inform the next 10 years of your career 🔗

I didn’t have much of a choice about which session to attend in this block. Thanks to everyone who joined me.

Rails Framework Defaults: Defusing the Time Bomb in Your Upgraded App 🔗

Josh Puetz shared what framework defaults are, how to leverage them, and how to safely introduce them as part of your upgrade process.

The History of Rails in 10 Blog Posts 🔗

Joël Quenneville shared the blog posts that pushed the conversation forward in our community, highlighting the impact and importance of the words.

The Modern View Layer Rails Deserves: A Vision for 2025 and Beyond 🔗

Marco Roth dazzled everyone yet again from the stage with all the work he does when he’s not on stage to improve our tooling and developer experience.

Keynote 🔗

Aaron Patterson gave an Aaron Patterson keynote. You could say he gave many Aaron Patterson keynotes. By reviewing his past presentations, he shared the reason why he went to such effort to deliver silly ideas to demonstrate profound concepts: because it was fun.

In doing so, Aaron demonstrated another profound concept. Creativity is what will push the industry forward. Allowing computers to continue to engage in the mundane will keep us where we are. But we’ll need humans, and their creativity, to push boundaries. So code for fun. Code for curiosity. Code just because.

Closing 🔗

RailsConf has been incredibly important to me. I won’t go into details, because it’d take me about 30 minutes. Instead, I’ll highlight how much it meant hearing about what RailsConf meant for others. How comforting it was to see everyone back again. How exciting it was to see people experience it for the first time. And, being honest, a bit of sadness thinking of everyone who wasn’t there for one reason or another.

When I left the lobby for the evening, I sought out Ufuk to thank him again and say good-bye. It was the perfect closing interaction.

Me: You did it!  
Ufuk: We did it.  

As usual, Ufuk is right. We did it. We all did. Thank you. Every one of you.