6 ms·

Ruby for Good

146 points by mooreds 6mo ago

aaronbrethorst 6mo ago
The actual Ruby for Good website has more information: https://rubyforgood.org/ https://rubyforgood.org/
- ramon156 6mo ago
  Sadly Ai generated. Bummer.
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
  - geoffpado 6mo ago
    No signs of being AI-generated, and considering several parts of the [codebase of the website](https://github.com/rubyforgood/rubyforgood.org https://github.com/rubyforgood/rubyforgood.org) haven't been touched since before ChatGPT was released, I think you might be barking up the wrong tree.
    - F3nd0 6mo ago
      The apparent founder has replied by saying they ‘just updated today with AI’, but the comment seems to have been deleted since. Not sure whether it was supposed to be serious or ironic. Maybe the latter, since the last commit is two months old. Or maybe the repository hasn’t been updated yet.
      - seanmarcia 6mo ago
        Yes, I did comment, sorry for the confusion. And the person who made the comment isn't crazy. We have another branch, claude_design, that was deployed briefly for some folks to look at and review and when he looked at the site it was the brief window that it was deployed. On the off chance that you have a better design sense than claude, love feedback/help on the new design -- and a PR ;)
        someguyiguess 6mo ago
        Honestly Claude is not great at front end design. So it’s more than an “off chance”. That being said I think the site looks fine.
        ValentineC 6mo ago
        Opus 4.6 and 4.7 can probably come up with something better than most open source contributors, given a few iterations. We should figure out how to get more designers contributing to open source.
        kjs3 5mo ago
        Give it time. Claude front end design will be the default soon as more bottom three quarters devs just vibecode it out.
        someguyiguess 6mo ago
        Actually looking at it on mobile I see a few issues. Scroll on mobile interferes with the slider. Also some of the font sizes are too large and overflow. Is the source repository public? Or was the request for a PR hyperbole? Edit: I see it was posted a few comments up.
        evolve2k 5mo ago
        Please stay off the AI. Leaning hard here sends the opposite message to what you’re intending. Seems the event is trying for say people matter more, lean into that.
block_dagger 6mo ago
I love Ruby and have built my career on it, but is it the right language to be starting new projects with given agentic coding? My take is "no." Rust or TS are probably better choices right now.
- BirAdam 6mo ago
  Why go halfway with Rust when you could just pick Ada SPARK? Seems like an arbitrary choice based off of rationalizing a trend.
  - firesteelrain 6mo ago
    Because you pick Ada Spark if are in a certification heavy environment like Aerospace.
  - pelagicAustral 6mo ago
    I feel like your comment is a bit tongue in cheek and i am going to take it at face value, but I honestly been feeling increasingly more like doing verbatim what you're suggesting and i dont have a very solid justification for it.
    - BirAdam 6mo ago
      I meant it honestly. What excuse do people have to choose anything other than mission critical technologies if the AI system can do most of the heavy lifting? Why should we settle for anything less than five 9s of uptime?
- lfx 6mo ago
  I understand why rust, but why TS? just for a front end?
  - mdavidn 6mo ago
    Compiler errors help the chatbot find and fix problems. The equivalent in Ruby, RBS, isn't as widely adopted. Type annotations being in separate files is also inconvenient. https://github.com/ruby/rbs https://github.com/ruby/rbs
rdevilla 6mo ago
The only programming language I know of that is obsessed with trumpeting its own moral virtue. "Matz is nice so we are nice," "Ruby for good," dragging DHH, etc. Meanwhile the Ruby Central and whytheluckystiff debacles show it to be anything but.
- jnovek 6mo ago
  _why’s disappearance from the scene was 17 years ago at this point. I don’t think the Ruby community you’re talking about exists anymore.
  - rhgraysonii 6mo ago
    I wonder what he is up to. I have 2 _why inspired tattoos after he did so much to influence my entire philosophy and style of programming. What a unique character, who happened to pop up at a very formative time for me. Thanks for all the nice stuff and ideas, _why.
    - the_gastropod 6mo ago
      That question pops into my mind from time to time, too. Hope he's well, and I hope he knows the lasting positive impact he had on so many people. I weirdly got my first programming job / made a good friend because of him (he tweeted about wishing he could adopt @person. I looked up @person, saw they lived in my city, worked at a company that was hiring. I DM'd @person, and eventually got the job!" Thanks ~2008 _why!
- the_gastropod 6mo ago
  Dude, what? Is it the MINASWAN acronym that's the problem or? If that's "trumpeting moral virtue", I can think of lots of programming languages that trumpet their moral virtue: Let's check out the Rust Code of Conduct (https://rust-lang.org/policies/code-of-conduct/ https://rust-lang.org/policies/code-of-conduct/): "Please be kind and courteous. There’s no need to be mean or rude." "We are committed to providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all, regardless of level of experience, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, personal appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion, nationality, or other similar characteristic." Seems pretty morally virtuous, no? How 'bout Gleam... Right on their home page (https://gleam.run https://gleam.run): "As a community, we want to be friendly too. People from around the world, of all backgrounds, genders, and experience levels are welcome and respected equally. See our community code of conduct for more. Black lives matter. Trans rights are human rights. No nazi bullsh*t." Seems morally virtuous, too! Also also: what does the "whytheluckystiff debacle" have to do with any of this?! Also also also: _why was pretty much the first prominent "dragger" of dhh. Man was an innovator.
dyeje 6mo ago
I volunteered a few years ago and had a great experience.
deedubaya 6mo ago
I’m glad to see conferences like this exist. It creates dedicated space for these focuses and the people who care passionately about them.
coolThingsFirst 6mo ago
Why does Ruby still have this artisinal aura to it, never seen C/C++ For Good gathering.
- shevy-java 6mo ago
  I would not know, but I also do not think that an event xyz in one place at time, reflects all of a community either. So I could not tell you what the people there do; probably they want to socialize. I think creating and maintaining high quality project would be much more important but maybe that's just me. All the main drivers in ruby, have been written ages ago really - rails, _why the lucky stiff, even the old "Learn to program" tutorial from Chris Pine and so forth. That is not to say that no innovation has happened since then, of course, but it seems the peak days are really far, far behind now ... Ruby is still a great programming language, but it really needs to intensify the effort to get out of the pit-of-decline.
  - isityettime 6mo ago
    > Ruby is still a great programming language, but it really needs to intensify the effort to get out of the pit-of-decline. The languages that have supplanted it haven't succeeded by being excellent. If excellence won't do it, what should "Ruby" do?
    - michaelteter 6mo ago
      At this point, we should just appreciate Ruby and move on. In the AI age, other languages are better choices. Ruby is my favorite language, but I build with Go now. Or rather, I guide my minions to build with Go. They write Go better than they would write Ruby (or Python... please die, Python).
      - insensible 6mo ago
        Ruby is a great utility language target for LLM-generated tools.
    - 6mo ago
shevy-java 6mo ago
> an annual event happening this year in the Washington DC area where programmers from all over the globe get together over a long weekend to build and contribute to projects that help our communities Or, just write code for a project - and add useful documentation to it. This is probably more relevant than overpriced hackathons.
matthewpick 6mo ago
Hackathons can be a blast. That said, it usually takes extra effort to productionize-a-thing after the initial hackathon effort. Hope to see a follow-up post on what was built!
seanmarcia 6mo ago
Hey all, I'm Sean, the founder of Ruby for Good! Excited to see this posted. We'd previously shared it in a few Slacks and were planning a larger announcement after the long weekend, but since someone beat us to it, we've opened up the early-bird registrations we were saving for Tuesday. The Ruby for Good in-person event is absolutely not a hackathon. It's a friendly gathering of OS maintainers where we work on existing projects (some have been running for over 10 years!) and kick off new ones. We don't code into the night and burn folks out, either. We have a hard stop every day when we break for dinner. The evenings are reserved for karaoke, conversations and s'more-making around the campfire, board games, and all the other fun nerdery that happens when you get a group of awesome folks together. Really, the best way to think of the event is as "nerd camp for good." Everyone leaves having made a bunch of new close friends. That's partly because helping non-profits is only part of the RfG mission. The other parts are growing the tech community and helping folks level up, regardless of skill level. For people interested in attending this year: we'll be working on existing projects as well as kicking off several new ones. With ACA subsidies going away and the number of nonprofits reaching out to us, our focus area this year is healthcare. We'll be launching a project with an Ohio/Illinois nonprofit that works with pediatric cancer patients and their families, another in Virginia that works with cancer caregivers, and a Maryland nonprofit focused on mental health. If you can't make it, almost all our projects are on GitHub and run year-round, so feel free to grab an issue!
pcthrowaway 6mo ago
I'm curious, what companies are sponsoring this Hackathon (if any)? It'd be good to know if there are any tech companies that legitimately stand for good in the world in 2026.
ksajadi 6mo ago
I just want to say thank you for all your good work. We are very proud to have been a small part of your efforts at Cloud 66. Keep up the good work.

Ruby for Good

146 points by mooreds 6mo ago

aaronbrethorst 6mo ago

The actual Ruby for Good website has more information: https://rubyforgood.org/ https://rubyforgood.org/

ramon156 6mo ago
Sadly Ai generated. Bummer.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- geoffpado 6mo ago
  No signs of being AI-generated, and considering several parts of the [codebase of the website](https://github.com/rubyforgood/rubyforgood.org https://github.com/rubyforgood/rubyforgood.org) haven't been touched since before ChatGPT was released, I think you might be barking up the wrong tree.
  - F3nd0 6mo ago
    The apparent founder has replied by saying they ‘just updated today with AI’, but the comment seems to have been deleted since. Not sure whether it was supposed to be serious or ironic. Maybe the latter, since the last commit is two months old. Or maybe the repository hasn’t been updated yet.
    - seanmarcia 6mo ago
      Yes, I did comment, sorry for the confusion. And the person who made the comment isn't crazy. We have another branch, claude_design, that was deployed briefly for some folks to look at and review and when he looked at the site it was the brief window that it was deployed. On the off chance that you have a better design sense than claude, love feedback/help on the new design -- and a PR ;)
      - someguyiguess 6mo ago
        Honestly Claude is not great at front end design. So it’s more than an “off chance”. That being said I think the site looks fine.
        ValentineC 6mo ago
        Opus 4.6 and 4.7 can probably come up with something better than most open source contributors, given a few iterations. We should figure out how to get more designers contributing to open source.
        kjs3 5mo ago
        Give it time. Claude front end design will be the default soon as more bottom three quarters devs just vibecode it out.
      - someguyiguess 6mo ago
        Actually looking at it on mobile I see a few issues. Scroll on mobile interferes with the slider. Also some of the font sizes are too large and overflow. Is the source repository public? Or was the request for a PR hyperbole? Edit: I see it was posted a few comments up.
      - evolve2k 5mo ago
        Please stay off the AI. Leaning hard here sends the opposite message to what you’re intending. Seems the event is trying for say people matter more, lean into that.

block_dagger 6mo ago

I love Ruby and have built my career on it, but is it the right language to be starting new projects with given agentic coding? My take is "no." Rust or TS are probably better choices right now.

BirAdam 6mo ago
Why go halfway with Rust when you could just pick Ada SPARK? Seems like an arbitrary choice based off of rationalizing a trend.
- firesteelrain 6mo ago
  Because you pick Ada Spark if are in a certification heavy environment like Aerospace.
- pelagicAustral 6mo ago
  I feel like your comment is a bit tongue in cheek and i am going to take it at face value, but I honestly been feeling increasingly more like doing verbatim what you're suggesting and i dont have a very solid justification for it.
  - BirAdam 6mo ago
    I meant it honestly. What excuse do people have to choose anything other than mission critical technologies if the AI system can do most of the heavy lifting? Why should we settle for anything less than five 9s of uptime?
lfx 6mo ago
I understand why rust, but why TS? just for a front end?
- mdavidn 6mo ago
  Compiler errors help the chatbot find and fix problems. The equivalent in Ruby, RBS, isn't as widely adopted. Type annotations being in separate files is also inconvenient. https://github.com/ruby/rbs https://github.com/ruby/rbs

rdevilla 6mo ago

The only programming language I know of that is obsessed with trumpeting its own moral virtue. "Matz is nice so we are nice," "Ruby for good," dragging DHH, etc. Meanwhile the Ruby Central and whytheluckystiff debacles show it to be anything but.

jnovek 6mo ago
_why’s disappearance from the scene was 17 years ago at this point. I don’t think the Ruby community you’re talking about exists anymore.
- rhgraysonii 6mo ago
  I wonder what he is up to. I have 2 _why inspired tattoos after he did so much to influence my entire philosophy and style of programming. What a unique character, who happened to pop up at a very formative time for me. Thanks for all the nice stuff and ideas, _why.
  - the_gastropod 6mo ago
    That question pops into my mind from time to time, too. Hope he's well, and I hope he knows the lasting positive impact he had on so many people. I weirdly got my first programming job / made a good friend because of him (he tweeted about wishing he could adopt @person. I looked up @person, saw they lived in my city, worked at a company that was hiring. I DM'd @person, and eventually got the job!" Thanks ~2008 _why!
the_gastropod 6mo ago
Dude, what? Is it the MINASWAN acronym that's the problem or? If that's "trumpeting moral virtue", I can think of lots of programming languages that trumpet their moral virtue: Let's check out the Rust Code of Conduct (https://rust-lang.org/policies/code-of-conduct/ https://rust-lang.org/policies/code-of-conduct/): "Please be kind and courteous. There’s no need to be mean or rude." "We are committed to providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all, regardless of level of experience, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, personal appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion, nationality, or other similar characteristic." Seems pretty morally virtuous, no? How 'bout Gleam... Right on their home page (https://gleam.run https://gleam.run): "As a community, we want to be friendly too. People from around the world, of all backgrounds, genders, and experience levels are welcome and respected equally. See our community code of conduct for more. Black lives matter. Trans rights are human rights. No nazi bullsh*t." Seems morally virtuous, too! Also also: what does the "whytheluckystiff debacle" have to do with any of this?! Also also also: _why was pretty much the first prominent "dragger" of dhh. Man was an innovator.

dyeje 6mo ago

I volunteered a few years ago and had a great experience.

deedubaya 6mo ago

I’m glad to see conferences like this exist. It creates dedicated space for these focuses and the people who care passionately about them.

coolThingsFirst 6mo ago

Why does Ruby still have this artisinal aura to it, never seen C/C++ For Good gathering.

shevy-java 6mo ago
I would not know, but I also do not think that an event xyz in one place at time, reflects all of a community either. So I could not tell you what the people there do; probably they want to socialize. I think creating and maintaining high quality project would be much more important but maybe that's just me. All the main drivers in ruby, have been written ages ago really - rails, _why the lucky stiff, even the old "Learn to program" tutorial from Chris Pine and so forth. That is not to say that no innovation has happened since then, of course, but it seems the peak days are really far, far behind now ... Ruby is still a great programming language, but it really needs to intensify the effort to get out of the pit-of-decline.
- isityettime 6mo ago
  > Ruby is still a great programming language, but it really needs to intensify the effort to get out of the pit-of-decline. The languages that have supplanted it haven't succeeded by being excellent. If excellence won't do it, what should "Ruby" do?
  - michaelteter 6mo ago
    At this point, we should just appreciate Ruby and move on. In the AI age, other languages are better choices. Ruby is my favorite language, but I build with Go now. Or rather, I guide my minions to build with Go. They write Go better than they would write Ruby (or Python... please die, Python).
    - insensible 6mo ago
      Ruby is a great utility language target for LLM-generated tools.
  - 6mo ago

shevy-java 6mo ago

> an annual event happening this year in the Washington DC area where programmers from all over the globe get together over a long weekend to build and contribute to projects that help our communities Or, just write code for a project - and add useful documentation to it. This is probably more relevant than overpriced hackathons.

matthewpick 6mo ago

Hackathons can be a blast. That said, it usually takes extra effort to productionize-a-thing after the initial hackathon effort. Hope to see a follow-up post on what was built!

seanmarcia 6mo ago

Hey all, I'm Sean, the founder of Ruby for Good! Excited to see this posted. We'd previously shared it in a few Slacks and were planning a larger announcement after the long weekend, but since someone beat us to it, we've opened up the early-bird registrations we were saving for Tuesday. The Ruby for Good in-person event is absolutely not a hackathon. It's a friendly gathering of OS maintainers where we work on existing projects (some have been running for over 10 years!) and kick off new ones. We don't code into the night and burn folks out, either. We have a hard stop every day when we break for dinner. The evenings are reserved for karaoke, conversations and s'more-making around the campfire, board games, and all the other fun nerdery that happens when you get a group of awesome folks together. Really, the best way to think of the event is as "nerd camp for good." Everyone leaves having made a bunch of new close friends. That's partly because helping non-profits is only part of the RfG mission. The other parts are growing the tech community and helping folks level up, regardless of skill level. For people interested in attending this year: we'll be working on existing projects as well as kicking off several new ones. With ACA subsidies going away and the number of nonprofits reaching out to us, our focus area this year is healthcare. We'll be launching a project with an Ohio/Illinois nonprofit that works with pediatric cancer patients and their families, another in Virginia that works with cancer caregivers, and a Maryland nonprofit focused on mental health. If you can't make it, almost all our projects are on GitHub and run year-round, so feel free to grab an issue!

pcthrowaway 6mo ago

I'm curious, what companies are sponsoring this Hackathon (if any)? It'd be good to know if there are any tech companies that legitimately stand for good in the world in 2026.

ksajadi 6mo ago

I just want to say thank you for all your good work. We are very proud to have been a small part of your efforts at Cloud 66. Keep up the good work.