On Rails

On Rails invites Rails developers to share real-world technical challenges and solutions, architectural decisions, and lessons learned while building with Rails. Through technical deep-dives and retrospectives with experienced engineers in the Rails community, we explore the strategies behind building and scaling Rails applications. Hosted by Robby Russell of Planet Argon and produced by the Rails Foundation.

On Rails is a technology podcast hosted by Rails Foundation, Robby Russell, with 18 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Rails Foundation, Robby Russell hosts On Rails, a technology show with 18 episodes published.

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  Episode #8

  Aaron Patterson: Ractors, JIT Compilers, and Rewriting How Gems Install

  Aug 4, 20261h 23mS2

  In this episode of On Rails, Robby is joined by Aaron Patterson, better known online as Tenderlove , a senior staff engineer on Shopify ’s Ruby infrastructure team and a longtime contributor to both Ruby and Rails Core. Aaron and Robby chat about how Ractors are finally bringing true multi-core parallelism to Ruby, the proposal Aaron has pitched to RubyGems.org for content addressable gems that could make bundle install dramatically faster, and the real reasons gems reach for native C extensions in the first place. They also have a candid conversation about how Aaron actually uses AI day to day, from digging through unfamiliar code at Shopify's scale to building a JPEG encoder almost entirely with Claude, and why he still can't quite bring himself to trust it the way he trusts a longtime teammate. Links Tenderlove Shopify Ractors RubyGems.org FFI Send us Fan Mail On Rails is a podcast focused on real-world technical decision-making, exploring how teams are scaling, architecting, and solving complex challenges with Rails. On Rails is brought to you by The Rails Foundation , and hosted by Robby Russell of Planet Argon , a consultancy that helps teams modernize their Ruby on Rails applications .

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  On Rails

  Nikky Southerland: Lessons from 13 Years of Rails at the Auto Shop

  Jun 30, 20261h 8m

  Robby is joined by Nikky Southerland , Lead Software Engineer at Shop-Ware — a cloud-based platform that helps independent automotive service shops run their businesses. Ruby on Rails has powered Shop-Ware since the first line of code was written back in 2013, and more than a decade later the codebase is still 90%+ Rails. Robby talks with Nikky about what it actually takes to keep a mature Rails app moving with a team roughly half the size it used to be, including a frontend migration that's still in progress, the API decision they regretted almost immediately, and the LaunchDarkly kill switches that save them when a third-party integrator goes down. Send us Fan Mail On Rails is a podcast focused on real-world technical decision-making, exploring how teams are scaling, architecting, and solving complex challenges with Rails. On Rails is brought to you by The Rails Foundation , and hosted by Robby Russell of Planet Argon , a consultancy that helps teams modernize their Ruby on Rails applications .

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  Episode #5

  DHH: Basecamp 5, Vibe Coding, and the Future of Rails

  Jun 12, 20261 hourS2

  David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of Ruby on Rails and co-owner of 37signals⁩ , joins Robby Russell the same week 37signals shipped Basecamp 5 to talk through the shift reshaping how software actually gets built today: why he reversed his "write every character by hand" stance, why he now considers taking AI seriously a professional obligation, and how cheap experimentation ("git reset and try again") is changing 37signals from the inside: designers and PMs working directly in code, and even the rigid six-week Shape Up cycle up for reconsideration. They also trace the history of Rails, including a backend so stable that a model file written today looks at home next to one from 2013, and take a peek at what's headed for Rails, from a Lexical-based editor ("Lexi") headed for ActionText to native passkeys and magic links. If you're curious where Rails is headed, have a listen. Send us Fan Mail On Rails is a podcast focused on real-world technical decision-making, exploring how teams are scaling, architecting, and solving complex challenges with Rails. On Rails is brought to you by The Rails Foundation , and hosted by Robby Russell of Planet Argon , a consultancy that helps teams modernize their Ruby on Rails applications .

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  Episode #4

  Tom Rossi: Staying as Rails as Possible

  May 15, 20261h 11mS2

  <p>Tom Rossi, co-founder of Higher Pixels and the team behind Buzzsprout, joins Robby to talk about what it really looks like to stay "as Rails as possible", purely out of pragmatism. With over 472,000 podcasts on the platform and a team of fewer than ten people, Tom explains how sticking to vanilla Rails has been the foundation of Buzzsprout's ability to move fast, stay lean, and keep up with a rapidly evolving industry.</p><p>In this episode, Tom walks through Buzzsprout's migration from Paperclip to Active Storage (including what broke spectacularly in production), their recent shift from hand-rolled summary...

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  Episode #3

  Jason Meller: Rails, Security, and the AI Advantage

  May 6, 20261h 12mS2

  <p>Jason Meller, founder of Kolide (acquired by 1Password in 2023) and now VP of Product at 1Password, joins Robby for a conversation about a career at the intersection of Rails, cybersecurity, and building.</p><p>They dig into why Rails has become one of the most token-efficient architectures for LLM-assisted development, and why that advantage matters as token costs increasingly shape what's worth building. </p><p>Jason also shares what he's learned about keeping developer environments secure as agentic tools become part of everyday workflows, covering 1Password's open-source SCAM benchmark, how LLMs handle credentials when operating autonomously, and practical steps d...

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