Robby Russell

If you were in a unique position to ask a bunch of people the same question about their Rails app... what would you be curious to hear them talk about?

#AskingForAFriendNamedRobby

Looking pretty C# there.

Been using computers since 1984, and recently had to look up what the Super button was.

Thanks for listening!

Signaling is powerful.

"Ex-[Company]" in a bio says: I was chosen. I belonged.

But what if your best work is still ahead of you?

What are you building now? What story are you telling today?

With all the AI buzz… what software dev books will you still be recommending in 5 years?

Not the trendy ones. The ones that actually made you better.

I’ll compile and share the list.
Drop your favorites 👇

Fun fact: I fell asleep during the Director's cut of Blade Runner in the theatre.

Nadia Odunayo & Scaling Rails for Millions of Users as a Solo Dev - On Rails In this episode of On Rails, Nadia Odunayo, founder and solo developer of The StoryGraph, joins us to share what it really takes to build and maintain a Rails application used by over four million rea...

In this new On Rails episode, we talk with Nadia about running The StoryGraph as a solo dev across web, iOS, and Android… Turbo Native, in-app purchases, syncing customer data… and scaling with Yugabyte.

Rails made it possible. She made it real.

onrails.buzzsprout.com/2462975/epis...

Need some fresh music today?

The recordings from the final RailsConf 2025 are now also live on @rubyevents.org!

#railsconf #railsconf2025 @rubycentral.org

If you’ve ever written button_to_function…
this might hit home.

Blog post + full talk video:
robbyonrails.com/articles/202...

I gave a talk at RailsConf 2025:
The Features We Loved, Lost, and Laughed At

Scriptaculous. Semicolon routes. observe_field. ActiveResource.
And the weird joy of revisiting old ideas with fresh eyes.

Oh, a huge shoutout to the yellow jacket 🐝 that decided to crash my coffee date with my friend by sneaking up my shorts! Because nothing says "great time" like a surprise bee sting, right? Thanks for the unforgettable memory!

With Rails celebrating 21 years of being open source... I was curious what my inbox looked like then.

I found this email in response to a Craigslist ad for one of the last few PHP client projects we worked on.

I left feeling more hopeful about where web development is headed.

I can’t make it this year because I’ll be on vacation, but if you have the chance to go, do it.

And please, say hi to Myrtle. You’ll know her when you see her.

What really stuck with me was the crowd.

People from all kinds of small, passionate communities working on developer tooling. Different lenses. Thoughtful ideas. Kind energy all around.

Also, the talk took place in the IMAX theater at the New England Aquarium.

Not your typical tech conference setup. Giant screen. Surreal lighting. Fish nearby. Slightly intimidating? Absolutely.

Robby Russell giving a talk about Oh My Zsh on stage at the New England Aquarium IMAX theater.

Robby Russell giving a talk about Oh My Zsh on stage at the New England Aquarium IMAX theater.

If you’re looking for a reason to visit Boston in September, check out @squiggleconf.com.

Last year, they invited me to kick things off with a talk about the 15-year story of building @ohmyz.sh. A weekend side project that slowly grew into a global community I never could have predicted.

Planet Argon LIVE: AppSignal for Application Performance Monitoring | LinkedIn App performance monitoring shouldn’t be overwhelming. If you’ve ever opened AppSignal and wondered, “Which of these graphs actually matters?” — this session is for you. In this brief, practical talk...

One of my teammates is hosting a webinar on how we're leveraging @appsignal.com across our client projects.

Tune in now www.linkedin.com/events/plane...

What is something you and your team have recently experimented with?

📻 Join @robbyonrails.com as Sara Jackson discusses how good documentation can make teams faster, more confident, and less reliant on institutional memory.
🎧 Listen to the full episode here: maintainable.fm/episodes/sar...

Another review of my band's recent album release. Glad it's connecting with people!

No roadmap. No strategy deck.
Just a weekend project that took on a life of its own.
Thanks @squiggleconf.com for inviting me to tell the Oh My Zsh story.

Planet Argon - Staff Augmentation Onshore & nearshore staff augmentation for Rails, Laravel, React, Vue. Scale your team fast with vetted developers. Get started today.

Looks like we might have a little capacity opening up at @planetargon.com in the next few months. If your team could use help shipping or stabilizing a Rails app, let’s talk.

Details: www.planetargon.com/services/sta...

Appreciate that Gmail added this tool

mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#sub

What’s your favorite nut to munch on?

Honestly, the real nightmare is being caught on the jumbotron at that concert.

With anyone.

I’m trying to track down what might’ve been the first Ruby on Rails app to get acquired by a much bigger company.

The earliest I’ve got so far is Adaptive Path’s Measure Map, which Google scooped up in early 2006.

Remember anything earlier than that?

Hey podcasters — I’ve got a little time in August if you’re looking for guests. I can talk about Oh My Zsh, Rails, music, or the noble art of keeping houseplants alive long enough to disappoint you again.

Full post here:
robbyonrails.com/articles/202...