I went to RubyKaigi 2018
I went to RubyKaigi 2018. I attended fully, centered on track A for all tracks. I think the technical materials will be published, so I will not write about the technical content. I will write impressions.
It was my first time attending. After having children, I did not really want to be away from home for more than two days, but seeing engineers on the same team happily attend, and thinking that it is a special event for Ruby users, I decided to go. It was a wonderful event that made me want to attend from next year onward too, if my schedule matches, or if I make it match.
I had thought there would be many low-layer talks, but after attending and listening carefully, there was a lot of practical content. Above all, the situation where admired engineers participate and exist there as a community gives an indescribable excitement. There may be parts I misunderstood, but while tech events in Tokyo are also very useful, this event felt special because the business and networking colors were extremely thin, and it overflowed with pride in engineering. It is not that business color is bad; rather, events centered on technical curiosity and technology with little networking color are highly valuable.
Matz is Nice and So We Are Nice. It was an event where I felt this phrase described a wonderful community. I will leave notes on what stayed with me.
Day 1
Matz’s keynote had the theme of maxims. What I personally felt was: (1) it was a wonderful keynote that thanked Ruby core developers and surrounding ecosystem developers, picked up highlights, and had profound content; (2) I gained an understanding that language development can be considered in ten-year cycles, and therefore must proceed while looking several decades ahead.
At the reception, I spoke a little with people from abroad and students. I felt the high image that people from India have of Japan, and at the same time felt that this means we must be solid. I also felt the high level of the students, while looking back on my own past.
Day 2
Sutou-san’s keynote. I understood the background of how overwhelming output is produced. While he said he made what he wanted, I got the impression that he was thinking about collaboration and replacement among machine learning, Python, and Ruby. It may have seemed like he simply presented examples, but underneath I felt an enormous presence about free software and the way its community should be.
The Ruby Committer talk. I did not understand things like SO_ORIGINAL_DST at all, and thought it was cool. On the second day, I left the reception early and ate the beef tongue the president recommended. It was good.
Day 3
I had heard that on the final day there would be more content I would not understand, so I was looking forward to it. Eregontp-san’s keynote surprised me with an ambitious and somewhat provocative presentation on JIT and parallel execution. I felt again that a tension centered on technical ability is necessary, not only friendliness. Later I learned that Sasada-san, who in a sense was on the provoked side, had proposed it. I think that is amazing.
Aside: after the keynote, Sasada-san and others began talking, like the second day’s discussion, about Guild, optimization, parallel execution, and use of cores. Being able to listen nearby was stimulating.
Finally, the closing. Next time is Fukuoka.
Finally
The team is still small and many things are hard, but I want to work so that everyone can come next year.
