Ruby work, tools, and tradeoffs in public.
Ruby Rogues follows Ruby people as they reason through real software work, from Rails changes and CLI packaging to AI agents and debugging. The tone is conversational and hands-on, with enough community context to make technical decisions feel connected to the people affected by them.
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Ruby Rogues is a practical conversation show about Ruby, Rails, software tooling, and the community that keeps those tools alive. It has the feel of developers thinking out loud rather than a scripted technology briefing. The episodes in this run move briskly. A discussion can begin with Railsworld, Markdown, offline mode, or smarter dev tools, then drift into Linux window managers, Apple constraints, and what a daily development environment actually feels like. AI is a recurring pressure point. The show treats it as both a product feature and a change in how software itself may be designed, especially when agents begin acting inside operating systems, applications, and business workflows. Ruby stays close to the center. Even when the subject is Inertia.js, Homebrew, debugging, or AI consultants, the conversation keeps circling back to how working programmers choose tools, ship software, and maintain trust. The show can also get openly reflective. Community episodes address RubyGems, Ruby Central, contributor policy, transparency, political tension, and the difficulty of keeping technical spaces welcoming without flattening disagreement. That gives Ruby Rogues a wider brief than syntax and framework updates. It is about the social operating system around Ruby as much as the code. Guest episodes bring useful specificity. Mike McQuaid talks through the messy reality of distributing command-line tools across macOS, Linux, and Windows. Chelsea Troy frames debugging as a craft rather than a panic response. Jonathan connects Inertia.js, Laravel, databases, Tailwind CSS, and ActiveRecord-adjacent thinking. Obi Fernandez brings startup experience and AI application development into the room. Valentino Stoll adds a working view of AI related stuff. Charles Maxwood often steers the show through personal updates, practical picks, and broad questions about where the field is going. The result is uneven in a human way, but rarely sterile. Ruby Rogues is best for developers who want technical substance with visible seams: assumptions, frustrations, corrections, and tradeoffs left in the conversation.
Made for: Ruby and Rails developers who care about production choices, ecosystem trust, and how new tools change daily work. It also fits software engineers outside Ruby who like concrete conversations about packaging, debugging, AI, and framework design.
What sets it apart: Ruby Rogues connects hands-on implementation detail with the health of the Ruby community itself. Similar shows may stay on tools or interviews; this one is comfortable moving from package managers and agents to RubyGems, Ruby Central, transparency, and developer culture.
Our original panel podcast, Ruby Rogues is a weekly discussion around Ruby, Rails, software development, and the community around Ruby. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/ruby-rogues--6102073/support.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Ruby Rogues makes Ruby development legible through detailed implementation talk, probing follow-ups, and close attention to the community structures behind the code.
Ruby Rogues turns software work into a conversation about choices and consequences. Charles Maxwood presses guests for the next useful detail: with Mike McQuaid, that means comparing Ruby, Go, and other options for distributing command-line tools across macOS, Linux, and…
A Ruby CLI meets Windows, and suddenly your distribution plan needs a second plan.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A Gusto AI discussion that grows into a sharper question about agentic operating systems.
Ruby Rogues tracks Valentino Stoll's move from Doximity to Gusto and the AI work shaping his time there. Gus, Gusto's chatbot for small businesses, anchors the conversation before it opens into a wider question: what changes when the operating system itself starts behaving like…
A Railsworld keynote leads into a practical look at Linux workflows, window managers, and development habits that feel personal.
Ruby Rogues uses Rails development as a way into the everyday choices behind a working setup. Charles Maxwood starts from DHH's Railsworld keynote, then follows the idea through Ubuntu, KDE, tiling window managers, and the draw of Sway as he thinks through what makes a Linux…
A solo Ruby Rogues check-in ties show logistics, political tension, Ruby plans, and a measured appeal for kindness.
Ruby Rogues settles into a candid solo check-in on why the show has run without guests for two episodes in a row. The host traces the strain to a full-time job at Price Picks, kids and school responsibilities, and Valentino also getting a job, all of which have made scheduling…
A plain-spoken case for handling Ruby community changes in public before enforcement begins.
Ruby Rogues spends this hour on Ruby Central and the wider Ruby community, and the host makes a careful case that the organization was trying to do the right thing while handling it badly.
A grounded look at Ruby CLI packaging, and why Windows can force a different distribution plan.
This episode offers a practical look at what it takes to ship a Ruby CLI without leaving the install story to chance. Charles Maxwood and Mike McQuaid keep the discussion anchored in release decisions, and the strongest moments come when Windows, macOS, and Linux are treated as…
A Ruby Rogues episode on AI agents, shifting interfaces, and what changes when the system starts doing the work.
Ruby Rogues spends this hour on AI agents and agentic systems, with Valentino Stoll discussing his move from Doximity to Gusto and the AI work he is doing there before the panel turns to what happens when a system starts to analyze, act, and improve.
A practical Ruby Rogues discussion of streaming, rendering, copy behavior, and background chat jobs in a Rails chat flow.
Ruby Rogues spends this hour on a streaming chat workflow, and the practical value is easy to see. Chunks are appended through Turbo, mark.js handles rendering in a separate view, and copy stays tied to Markdown rather than HTML.
Power Platform news with practical static.
Valentino Stoll discusses his work on autogenetic AI agents using his Ruby gem 'agentic', which allows AI systems to self-assemble agents to accomplish tasks.
A panel discussion with Dmitry about using GraphQL with Ruby on Rails, comparing it to REST and exploring trade-offs.
Carmine Paolino, creator of the Ruby LLM gem, joins Ruby Rogues to discuss his journey from automating games at age five to building AI tools.
Valentino Stoll catches Charles Maxwood up on his move from Doximity to Gusto.
Charles Maxwood uses DHH’s Railsworld keynote to contrast old FTP deployments with modern CI/CD pipelines, Kubernetes, AWS, and Heroku.
Ruby Rogues is a solo episode focused on keeping the Ruby community welcoming while the host says he has been working full-time at PricePicks since March and has had less time for guest booking.
The host opens by saying he is back after a break and wants to talk about what is happening in the Ruby community.
Charles Maxwood opens with Mike McQuaid and the question of how to ship a Ruby CLI.
A panel of Ruby developers discuss practical debugging techniques with guest Chelsea Troy.
A panel discussion about Ruby and web development, featuring an interview with the creator of Inertia.js.
A panel of Ruby developers discusses the language, frameworks, and community, with a special guest sharing his experience with AI startups.