In this episode, I’m joined by Victor Shepelev, a member of the Ruby Core team and the author of Ruby’s new Data class. We dive into why Ruby needed the Data class, exploring how it fits into the language and enhances Ruby’s capabilities. Victor also shares insights on some other exciting Ruby features, including Numbered Block Parameters, the "it" keyword, and the growing role of functional programming in Ruby.

Beyond coding, Victor has a unique perspective as he’s officially enlisted in the Ukrainian Army. I had the chance to talk with him about what it’s like to balance life as a Rubyist and a soldier, and we discuss meaningful ways to support him and Ukraine.

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Ruby Data Class
Ruby Changes
Support Ukraine
Useless syntax sugar”: Numeric block parameters

In this episode, I sit down with a seasoned Rails engineer to dive into the technical intricacies and community-building work that power the Ruby ecosystem. Adrianna, who currently works as an engineer at Shopify shares insights into their role, their experience with the vibrant WNB.rb community, and what goes into organising meetups focused on all things Ruby and Rails.

We take a deep dive into Trilogy, Shopify’s custom implementation of the MySQL protocol. Adrianna unpacks the motivation behind developing Trilogy, the design choices that distinguish it from the traditional libmysqlclient library, and the trade-offs they faced. We also discuss the challenges of migrating from MySQL 2 to Trilogy, particularly around compatibility and maintaining a seamless CI/CD pipeline throughout the process.

Listeners will learn about the performance benefits Trilogy offers, how Shopify overcame the obstacles of database migration, and the future roadmap for Trilogy’s development in Rails. Finally, Adrianna reflects on the books that have been instrumental in shaping their career, offering valuable recommendations for developers at all levels.

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Migrating Shopify’s Core Rails Monolith to Trilogy - Rails World 2023
Trilogy
WNB.rb

The debugger you didn't know you needed. Ruby comes with an official debugger called Debug, which is now included in new Rails applications. Surprisingly, many Rails developers are still unaware of just how powerful this tool is. In this episode, Stan and I dive into its capabilities, exploring how it enhances the debugging process and makes troubleshooting more efficient.

Debug
The Startup of You