RubyConf 2026 is coming up soon! The deadline to buy a ticket and enter the VIP raffle by buying a RubyConf ticket is July 1st. That’s only 2 days from this post’s publication. This personal essay explores why a language-specific conference in the age of AI is still important and why events are still important for bringing developers together.

Food brings people together. At the first conference I ever went to, I accidentally had breakfast with Aaron Patterson, having no clue who he was. We were in Oklahoma, and a guy wearing a funny brown suit was in the conference breakfast area. The tech lead on my team, whom I was following, sat down and struck up a conversation with him. Later, when Aaron got on stage as a keynote, I was grateful I didn’t realize who he was, or I probably would have been a lot more awkward (being a bit star-struck). Later in that same conference, Aaron helped me land my first pull request in Rails in between rounds of Settlers of Catan (a board game) with the creator of RVM (a Ruby version manager/switcher tool). I’m not saying that sharing conversation over slices of cinnamon buns is what landed me the commit, but I’m not saying it hurt either.

Since then, I’ve had countless meals at 40+ conferences in 17 countries. By far, my favorites are the Speaker’s dinners. These are invite-only dinners available only to the attendees speaking at the conference. These events are where I met famous Rubyists like Jim Weirich, creator of Rake, and Jeremy Evans (sequel, roda, and many more). I’ve been a “fly on a wall” while Ruby Core Committers like Matz, Koichi Sasada, and Nobu have deeply technical discussions. I’ve advocated for unblocking some of my pet Rails PRs to Rafael França and got an advanced heads up about PRISM parser changes by Kevin Newton. These conferences, and the dinners and outings that happen at them, have helped me build lasting friendships that are worth far more to me than I can describe. I met Evan Phoenix, creator of Puma, at a “birds of a feather” session, then got commit-bit not long after. Later, at the Arizona RailsConf, when I told him I liked the color of the staff T-shirts, he gave me the shirt off his back. Literally. I still have it.

The speakers’ dinner is a place where I never know quite what I’ll find, but I always walk away full from conversation, food, and excited about the future.

Excitement seems like a rare and precious commodity these days. A lot of companies are going through layoffs. The industry is being reshaped with AI leaderboards and mandates. Developers are finding they can be productive in languages they’ve never worked with, which is amazing. They’re also finding that arguing with a machine all day can be isolating and draining. In this age, what does it mean to be a Rubyist? What value does an in-person event have? Is it really worth it to pay to go to a conference to awkwardly stand in a circle around a speaker after a talk when Claude or Codex is ready and willing to give you 1:1 attention? These are questions I’ve been thinking about a lot.

Is being a Rubyist still important in the age of AI?

At a conference dinner, I once asked a Japanese Ruby developer what language they thought about code in, what language they dreamed in. The resulting discussion that popped up at the table from several native and non-native English speakers was fascinating. An interesting observation was that when people are tired, they prefer to speak in their native language, even if they’re highly proficient in another. Bringing this back to AI and code, I think that while I can ask my LLM-powered assistant to write in Go, or C++ or Node.js, my “native” programming language is Ruby, the one I learned in 2006 and got a full-time job with in 2010. I did a master’s course at Georgia Tech, largely in Python, but I still found Ruby to be like a comfortable couch where everything fits right. It’s where I preferred to be when the sun was starting to set, and my brain was starting to get slower. Ruby is my native programming tongue. The programming language I (day) dream in.

I think it’s important that in this age of AI-powered generalists, programmers go out of their way to go deep in some areas. While having mastery over Ruby might not be required to make a PR to a project, I think it’s important to work towards mastery in SOME programming language, and Ruby fits my brain (I like Rust too…but that’s a different post for a different conference). I believe being a programmer has changed, but there’s still value in going deep. There’s still value in being a Rubyist.

Is going to in-person events still important in the age of AI?

When I was younger, going to these conferences gave me knowledge I couldn’t otherwise access. Either you were in the room when Koichi Sasada explained how multi-colored write-barrier powered generational garbage collection, or you weren’t. I didn’t understand all the words all the time, but sometimes being confused and exposed to new things is the first step to learning.

As I’ve gotten older, I still value the technical details, but the thing I value more is the energy and excitement I get from these in-person events. The joy of listening to how someone learned something new and then being able to share that new thing with you is infectious. The connections and conversations that pop up in the elevator or at 2 am at Karaoke are unplannable and invaluable. LLMs are always-on and always-there. But these events are special because they’re not.

It takes a lot of effort to go and talk to a stranger, even if you love their work and want to learn more about it. Having the event be a limited-time engagement means that I have an excuse to have those conversations with people like Jessica Kerr and Charles Nutter. Could I message these people on Mastodon or Blue Sky at any hour of the day? Sure, but being there, being in-person, seeing their face, hearing the inflections in their voices, having that shared experience with hundreds of others in the room. It’s, well…an event. And I believe it’s still worth something. It’s worth investing in Ruby, it’s worth investing in events, and it’s worth investing in me by getting out of my comfort zone and into RubyConf.

RubConf 2026

I still think being a Rubyist matters and going to events like RubyConf matters. That’s why I am going. I’ll be speaking on a panel of maintainers. I’m excited to go to the speaker’s dinner. I’m also excited that for the first time ever, we are raffling off the opportunity for five lucky VIP Rubyists to come along. If you buy a ticket to RubyConf 2026 before July 1st, you’ll get an exclusive pin and be entered to win a ticket to the speakers’ dinner and VIP seating for the keynotes. Read more about it on the VIP raffle announcement or buy your RubyConf ticket today. If you win, I can’t guarantee you’ll make new, forever-friends or have a life-changing night. I can guarantee that if you enter or you don’t go, you’ll never know. Win or lose, I hope to see you at the conference.