Are you aware RubyKaigi? RubyKaigi 2022 was lately held in Tsu, Japan, and all the Evil Martians Japanese workplace crew attended the convention in individual. This text is each a first-timer’s report from this superior Ruby occasion and can also be your probability to get a style of what the far-east life-style is like for Martians engineers!
The Evil Martians from the Japanese workplace chilling on our sofa
Earlier than we bounce in, こんにちは! Since that is the primary article from Evil Martians’ Japanese workplace, a little bit of an introduction is so as. In Might 2022, we established a brand new workplace and totally opened up store right here in Japan. Being right here actually has particular advantages for our crew. As an illustration, we’re avid followers of open supply and anime (though that is true for all the Evil Martians crew), however we most likely have a a lot simpler time shopping for obscure anime-related paraphilia from the 80’s right here in Osaka than those that are primarily based out of our New York or Lisbon places of work.
Often, we spend our days in Japan writing Ruby and consuming gelato, however since our new workplace is comparatively new, RubyKaigi, an annual convention for Ruby programmers held since 2006, was an incredible alternative for us to get to know individuals right here in Japan.
Most of us most likely know that Ruby was born in Japan, being spawned from the thoughts of Matz, the benevolent chief of the Rubyist neighborhood. Early on—particularly within the time earlier than Rails—Ruby was primarily standard in Japan, and whereas that’s not the case and its since turn out to be a global treasure, Ruby nonetheless enjoys recognition in its birthplace.
Heading to RubyKaigi for the primary time
This yr was my first time going to RubyKaigi. Because the earlier convention was held manner again in 2019, it’s been some time because the final occasion, so it felt like everybody was excited to fulfill one another. (Though, it took a while for us to heat up, as a result of, in spite of everything, it had been three years since we’d actually had this kind of substantial interplay with individuals offline and in individual.)
Sampo and Andrey dashing in the direction of RubyKaigi
The town of Tsu
RubyKaigi was held in Tsu this yr, which is situated in Mie prefecture. Enjoyable reality: the station identify “Tsu” is the shortest station identify within the entirety of Japan. The town of Tsu itself is fairly small too, however we discovered some wonderful eating places and izakayas there, so it was really a very nice selection, plus, there was this electrifying feeling, and it felt like the entire metropolis was filled with Rubyists. In the event you went out at night time, you can make sure you’d meet others who had been into Ruby.
Evil Martians within the land of Ruby
We arrived!
Within the image above, you possibly can see everybody who works on the Osaka workplace, and also you’ll hear from every of them on this article, too. Ruby Kaigi 2022 additionally gave us a transparent aim: we wish to have not less than one Martian on the stage in 2023, ideally two!
Digesting some latest Ruby developments
Now, onto the precise meat of the meetup, the talks. There have been three that I particularly appreciated.
The primary was by Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto himself, the creator of Ruby. He gave a speak about the way forward for Ruby, and it was actually fascinating to listen to in regards to the route he desires to take the language in.
Additionally, it was fascinating to hearken to the dialogue between Matz and the Ruby committers and about whether or not the language ought to have _1 aliased as it. At first I used to be with Matz on this problem, however after listening to different individuals speak about it fairly passionately, now I’m beginning to see it too. (This may make code like ruby [1, 2, 3].every { places it } slightly bit nicer.)
The second speak I actually appreciated was by Yuji Yokoo, who talked about how he used Ruby to jot down a presentation/sport for the Sega Megadrive. The truth is, the presentation itself was operating on an precise MegaDrive! This obtained me actually excited in regards to the potentialities of mruby, which is a light-weight implementation of Ruby that can be utilized on embedded units—however I had no concept it may run on one thing as outdated because the Sega MegaDrive (launched in 1988!).
The third speak I actually appreciated was by Samuel Williams, who spoke in regards to the new fiber scheduler that was applied in Ruby 3.0. What made this speak so thrilling was the best way Samuel associated a narrative about Ruby being too gradual for a real-world use case, a DNS server, and he mentioned enhancing the language sufficient in order that it could possibly be used for this. The way forward for async Ruby and the way async Ruby must be straightforward to jot down, was one thing I can 100% get behind.
Mie was place to be; seeing so many individuals in individual after the lengthy pause was cool.
My ideas: Rubysts actually wish to rewrite JIT many times. I feel there have been round 5 talks about that on the convention. Additionally they wish to rewrite GC. It doesn’t seem like sorts have taken off in Ruby world to this point. There’s a DefinitelyTyped analogue for RBS, however have solely been 40+ typedefs for the previous couple of years. However nonetheless, so much individuals, like Fu-ga, try to make it occur. Japanese Rubysts like to functionally use Ruby they usually don’t actually like boring internet growth instruments like Rails from what I can see. There was additionally a cool speak from Yuji Yokoo on making Sega MegaDrive video games in Ruby. And, Jeremy Evans actually likes to deal with esoteric bugs as evidenced by his speak Fixing Task Analysis Order.
There was a way of pleasure at Ruby Kaigi, it felt like everybody was actually enthusiastic about attending to share their love of Ruby. We noticed a speak about the way to run mruby on Sega MegaDrive; we additionally attended a speak about the way forward for concurrent processing in Ruby and the way thrilling the world of Falcon and ActiveRecord on Rails 7.1 seems to be.
This yr’s venue for RubyKaigi
I used to be fairly excited to attend first in-person RubyKaigi since COVID-19 pandemic began. (And the primary large, in-person convention in years). RubyKaigi continues to be the identical great, uncommon form of convention that mixes a wild choice of hardcore subjects and top-class group—for a greater than reasonably priced price. It was enjoyable, it was bizarre, it was good. Can’t await the subsequent one.
After Ruby Kaigi, I headed to Ise Jingu Shrine with some Ruby buddies. It was such an incredible expertise attending to really feel the environment of this holy shrine alongside different Rubyists. Plus, the meals was nice!
Extraordinary experiences are one other perk of life in Japan
I obtained to fulfill some fairly good individuals. Matz even retweeted this picture me and my Ruby buddies consuming shaved ice!
On the best way again to Osaka, I made a decision to splurge on the premium seat. It was 400 yen extra, however I feel it was fully price it. I hope to see you subsequent yr in Matsumoto Metropolis, Japan, to have fun Ruby Kaigi 2023!
The primary offline RubyKaigi because the pandemic started gave me hope.
Hope that the world will likely be regular once more sometime. What’s extra, even TRICK was again! Greater than the rest, this contest demonstrates that Ruby is a hell of quite a lot of enjoyable! Need to really feel once more like a child who simply wrote his first HelloWorld program? Try the jury’s speak. What can I say? “Ruby is useless”. And I’m extremely joyful as a result of meaning one other RubyKaigi subsequent yr.
Lastly, there’s no want to attend for extra Ruby goodness in Japan; the Evil Martians crew actually desires to provide again and contribute to the Japanese Ruby neighborhood as a lot as we are able to. On that notice, we already sit up for our personal Andrey Novikov talking on the upcoming Kaigi on Rails 2022!
Evil Martians is a product growth consultancy with places of work around the globe, together with in Osaka, Japan! We work with startups and established companies—and we get issues achieved! So, if in case you have a challenge in want, get in contact with us!
