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Ruby, Rails, and the future of programming - Matz, DHH & Jeremy Daer

Ruby on Rails

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What does it mean to be a Rubyist when agents write the code? In this Rails World 2026 fireside chat, Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto and David Heinemeier Hansson sit down with Jeremy Daer (37signals) to talk about shaping the future of Ruby and Rails as AI-assisted development becomes the norm.

They cover the identity shift from software writer to software maker, why taste and joy still matter, and Matz's new Spinel compiler, which turns Ruby into native binaries using a fraction of the memory. They also get into slop, trust, and handing judgment to agents, why Ruby turns out to be one of the most token-efficient languages, and what two decades of Ruby and Rails have gotten right.

CHAPTERS
00:00 Welcome to "AI World"
02:55 Speedrunning the stages of grief
04:24 Who still feels like a Rubyist?
06:51 From software writer to software maker
13:13 Spinel: compiling Ruby to native binaries
21:05 Beyond the fixed pie
25:57 Matz, the original vibe coder
29:46 Slop, slop grenades, and cope
36:02 How much judgment do we cede to agents?
40:30 Keeping open source sustainable
42:36 When abstractions stop being necessary
45:17 The Commodore 64 era of AI
47:56 Ruby's token efficiency
52:41 The values of Rails, and finding your tribe
56:59 What Ruby and Rails got right
1:01:45 What they're most thankful for

#RailsWorld #RubyOnRails #Ruby #Matz #dhh

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20 Comments

@huntfishandgrow4140 9 days ago

The conference was a funeral. An incredible celebration of life, and this was the obituary

I look forward to Rails World 2027 and whatever comes next

@raineivyaeera 8 days ago

I've never heard Matz talk before, but wow what a genuinely great guy with good distinctions drawn. really love what he had to say :)

@StanCarverII 9 days ago

Matz, keep pressing on. You invented the most natural English software development language for AI.

@farnoud 3 days ago

I grew up loving Ruby and Ruby on Rails. it was a beautiful language and framework. hope the compiler thing catch on and Ruby stays alive

@bslobodeniuk 8 days ago

Great job, thank you, Matz! ❤

@SupeRails 7 days ago

loved it! thanks for your optimism!

@Simon-xi8tb 9 days ago

Where is Rich Hickey , we need him to step in here and tell us how we are wrong.

@TheKennyWorld 6 days ago

Thank you DHH and Matz for sharing your thoughts with us.

@AlecanderTheGr8 6 days ago

What a great talk - thanks yall!

An excellent modern science fiction to check out is Anne Leckie’s Imperial Radch Trilogy. A mind-bending exploration of what ai cognition and consciousness could look like!

@Sp4rklux 9 days ago

Last railsconf ever. End of an era

@eotfofiw2748 8 days ago

I can understand why Rails fans would have been disappointed with this conference but I think the theme of it - upsetting though it may have been to some - is such a great point to be hitting home. You've got DHH and Matz on stage saying "things have changed" and even if people are still in the denial stage, surely you have to think about that. You can think of the current state of things as scary (it is) but you can also think of it as exciting (it definitely is). I hope people who had tickets who were hoping for more Rails content, left with a feeling of excitement from what was presented. Love Ruby, love Rails - the comments of taste, proportion and duty DHH mentioned about the Ruby community - I think that was true in the past and I hope it's still true today.

@haroldpepete 9 days ago

Imagine paying for tickets, a hotel, and food only to hear, "Rails is over, better focus on another language." 😂

@loudspeakerdatabase 9 days ago

I don’t code in Ruby anymore. But watching this RailsConf felt like watching Brutus stab Caesar with a rusty knife.

@shin-ishikiri-no 8 days ago

Profoundly sad day for beginners who were interested in learning the ins and outs of Ruby. I still intend to use it for readable code, but not sure how long I can justify it against Zig.

@abraham7966 8 days ago

Imagine $1M( in tokens) spent on Spinel. I wonder how far could we go.

@NullPointerDeception 7 days ago

What exactly is the point of Rails World as a conference? This was all about AI and moving off Rails for one of the biggest Rails shops (37signals).

@klasus2344 8 days ago

Ruby is elegance

@marcusg2000 1 day ago

I am afraid to say this as a past Ruby fanatic since early days - the language is now headjng rowards a COBOL status / maintenance mode. I don't see a place for it anymore, like any beautiful art in the museums.