I will present the talks in order of appearance. They were organized in such an order, from the most accessible to the most complex.
The first one was The best case scenario by Sandjiv.
Sandvij introduced everything about pattern matching in Ruby,
from it’s implementation in the VM to it’s usage.
It kicked the room up to a great start.
The second one was “A front-end journey back to Rails” by Kevin Vanzandberghe. Kevin is a seasoned Rails developer who did a stint in React. He detailed how the features that were easy to implement in React are now even more easily implemented with Hotwire.
The third one was “Besides Web: a Worker Story” by Philippe Van Eerdenbrugghe. Philippe talked about his story of implementing an independent worker in Ruby. He outlined the problems faced, the solutions he and his team found, and the libraries he is happy to use.
The fourth one was “The world of Passkeys” by Helio Cola. I bet that some of you do not know what a passkey is. To be sincere, neither was why when Helio made his proposal. Passkey might be the future of authentication, and Helio gave an important introduction to it.
The fifth one was “Backtracie and the quest for prettier Ruby backtraces” by Ivo Anjo. I believe this presentation was the closest to the ruby presentations FOSDEM used to have. Indeed, Ivo went straight into the Ruby VM to enhance the backtrace and showed us how.
The last one was “Deploy Your Next Ruby App with WebAssembly (Wasm): Smaller, Safer, Faster” by Dan Phillips. Dan is working on making ruby deployable in the back-end with WebAssembly. He outlines why it would be helpful and what the challenges are. He also presented his project “box”, which looks like a more straightforward, better Docker.
So here it is. I have to say that my day at FOSDEM hosting the Ruby room was an unforgettable experience. Seeing passionate developers present their projects and share their knowledge was genuinely inspiring. It was a great reminder of the power of open-source development and the sense of community it fosters. I left the event feeling energized and excited about the future of Ruby and the impact it can have on the world. Honestly, Many of us were astonished by how full the room was. I promise I’m going to repeat the experience next year!
