Sunsetting the Fullstack Ruby Podcast (and What I’m Doing Instead)
Working upstream on broader commentary on the state of technology today. We've reached a crisis point.
Hello Ruby friend,
Hope your day is going well! I’m sharing with you this post from the Fullstack Ruby blog…not the most fun thing to be discussing ’tis true, but a necessary one given the current climate. I appreciate you being a subscriber!
I always hate writing posts like this, which is why I rarely do it and tend to let content destinations linger on the interwebs indefinitely.
But I'm in the midst of spring summer cleaning regarding all things content creation, so I figured it's best to be upfront about these things and give folks a heads up what I'm currently working on.
TL;DR: I'm bidding the Fullstack Ruby podcast a bittersweet farewell and gearing up to launch a new podcast centered on current events in the software & internet technology space, because we've reached a crisis point and future of the open web is more fragile than ever.
Here's the truth. There's a lot that's fucked up about Big Tech and software development right now. Pardon my language, but I have struggled mightily with burnout for going on two years now; not because I don't like writing software (oddly enough, I care as much about the actual work I do as a developer as I ever have!), but because I don't like the software industry. ☹️
And sadly, I have been particularly disappointed with what's going on with Ruby. I don't want to rehash past consternation (you can read about my attempt to fully reboot Fullstack Ruby a year ago for more background, and listen to the followup podcast episode). Here's the summary:
There are two devastating downward pressures on the software industry right now: the unholy alliance of far-right bigotry/propaganda & Big Tech, and the atomic bomb-level threat to the open web that is Generative AI. And the crazy part is, there's actually a cultural connection between fascism and genAI so in a sense, these aren't two separate problems. They're the same problem.
Unfortunately, the Ruby community taken as a whole has done NOTHING to fight these problems. Certain individuals have, yes. Good for them. It's not moving the needle though.
Ruby already has suffered in recent years from the brain-drain problem and the lack of mainstream awareness for new project development. I have always felt that problem alone is one we can surmount. But when you pile on top of that the fascism problem (personified in the founder & figurehead of Ruby on Rails, DHH) and the AI problem (which major voices in the Ruby space have not only failed to combat but they're actively advocating for and encouraging genAI use), I find it increasingly difficult to remain an active cheerleader going forward.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's any better per se in other programming language communities. But if I have to deal with fighting off fascism and the evils of Big Tech on a daily basis, I might as well be writing JavaScript while I'm doing it. JavaScript is the lingua franca of the web. It just is. And it's already what we use for frontend, out of technical necessity.
I still prefer writing Ruby on the backend. I do, I really do! And I'm not sure yet I'm ready to give that up, even now. But it does mean I find my enthusiasm for talking about Ruby and recommending it to others fading into the background. Damn.
I haven't yet decided what the ultimate fate of this blog is. But I do know I'm ready to scale my ambitions way down in this particular community, so to start, I must bid the podcast farewell. 🫡
As I alluded to above, I'm actually gearing up to launch a brand new podcast! You may be interested it in, you may not. Regardless, the easiest way to stay notified on the launch is to follow me on Mastodon and subscribe to the Cycles Hyped No More newsletter (the podcast will be a companion product if you will to that newsletter).
It should come to no surprise by now that the purpose of the new podcast is to take the twin perils of fascism-adjacent Big Tech and genAI head on. I will be speaking about this early, often, for as long as it takes for people to wake up and realize the open web is under assault. I don't mean to sound unnecessarily dramatic, but while we're over here arguing about programming languages and coding patterns and architectural choices for our web apps, the very web itself is getting pillaged and dismantled brick by brick by hostile forces.
I'm not going to let that happen without a fight.
I hope you're interested in joining me in this fight. Stay tuned.
–Jared ✌️