On Rails – Details, episodes & analysis

David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of Ruby on Rails and co-owner of 37signals⁩, joins Robby Russell the same week 37signals shipped Basecamp 5 to talk through the shift reshaping how software actually gets built today: why he reversed his "write every character by hand" stance, why he now considers taking AI seriously a professional obligation, and how cheap experimentation ("git reset and try again") is changing 37signals from the inside: designers and PMs working directly in code, and even the rigid six-week Shape Up cycle up for reconsideration. 

They also trace the history of Rails, including a backend so stable that a model file written today looks at home next to one from 2013, and take a peek at what's headed for Rails, from a Lexical-based editor ("Lexi") headed for ActionText to native passkeys and magic links. 

If you're curious where Rails is headed, have a listen.

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On Rails is a podcast focused on real-world technical decision-making, exploring how teams are scaling, architecting, and solving complex challenges with Rails. 

On Rails is brought to you by The Rails Foundation, and hosted by Robby Russell of Planet Argon, a consultancy that helps teams modernize their Ruby on Rails applications.

Tom Rossi, co-founder of Higher Pixels and the team behind Buzzsprout, joins Robby to talk about what it really looks like to stay "as Rails as possible", purely out of pragmatism. With over 472,000 podcasts on the platform and a team of fewer than ten people, Tom explains how sticking to vanilla Rails has been the foundation of Buzzsprout's ability to move fast, stay lean, and keep up with a rapidly evolving industry.

In this episode, Tom walks through Buzzsprout's migration from Paperclip to Active Storage (including what broke spectacularly in production), their recent shift from hand-rolled summary tables to ClickHouse for analytics, and how Hotwire made building the Buzzsprout mobile app surprisingly manageable. He also shares how Buzzsprout's real-world scale, including the monkey patching that resulted from it, led directly to contributions back upstream into Rails itself.

• Higher Pixels: https://www.higherpixels.com
• Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com
• Buzzsprout Blog: https://www.buzzsprout.com/blog
• Tick (time tracking): https://www.tickspot.com
• Donor Tools: https://www.donortools.com
• StreamCare: https://www.streamcare.com
• Higher Pixels joins the Rails Foundation: https://rubyonrails.org/2025/2/18/higher-pixels-joins-foundation

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On Rails is a podcast focused on real-world technical decision-making, exploring how teams are scaling, architecting, and solving complex challenges with Rails. 

On Rails is brought to you by The Rails Foundation, and hosted by Robby Russell of Planet Argon, a consultancy that helps teams modernize their Ruby on Rails applications.

In this episode of On Rails, Robby is joined by Hilary Stohs-Krause, a Senior Software Engineer at Red Canary. They explore how engineering teams approach everyday performance work, from small Active Record optimizations to larger architectural decisions. Hilary shares insights from Red Canary's journey switching from React to Rails' native Hotwire stack, how her team tackled flaky test failures that were slowing down continuous deployments, and some strong opinions about custom linters.

🧰 Tools, Libraries, and Books Mentioned

• RuboCop – Enforces Ruby style and conventions, with support for custom cops.
• haml-lint – Linter for HAML templates to enforce consistent view code.
• ESLint – JavaScript linter used for maintaining consistent code quality, especially in React.
• HadoLint – Linter for Dockerfiles to catch common issues and enforce best practices.
• SitePrism – Page-object model DSL for Capybara to reduce flaky system tests.
• Sidekiq – Background job processor used in production Rails environments.
• Turbo – Part of the Hotwire stack for reactive updates without full-page reloads.
• Stimulus – Lightweight JavaScript framework for enhancing HTML with small interactions.
• Hotwire – A set of tools (Turbo + Stimulus) for building modern web apps without heavy JavaScript.
• Thinking in Bets – A book about better decision-making under uncertainty, by Annie Duke.

Send us Fan Mail

On Rails is a podcast focused on real-world technical decision-making, exploring how teams are scaling, architecting, and solving complex challenges with Rails. 

On Rails is brought to you by The Rails Foundation, and hosted by Robby Russell of Planet Argon, a consultancy that helps teams modernize their Ruby on Rails applications.

In this episode of On Rails, Robby is joined by Ryan Stawarz and Austin Story from Doximity, where Ruby on Rails has powered the core of their platform for over 15 years. The trio digs into how a single Rails monolith has evolved to support 100+ engineers and a mobile-first experience for millions of healthcare professionals. From front-end framework migrations to API architecture, they explore the real-world decisions required to keep a large Rails app resilient and fast-moving.

Ryan and Austin walk us through the team’s adoption of GraphQL, what led them to introduce GraphQL Federation, and how they balance speed with reliability when scaling APIs across domains. They talk about the tradeoffs of maintaining both GraphQL and REST, and how Doximity avoids N+1 query pitfalls using BatchLoader. The conversation also touches on the evolution of their front-end—from Backbone to Vue.js—and why Rails’ flexibility still gives them an edge.

Throughout the episode, they share pragmatic insights into debugging at scale, managing one-off data migrations, and determining when a service should live inside or outside the monolith. They also reflect on their use of tools like Packwerk, AnyCable, and Departure, and how a culture of trust, documentation, and lightweight planning helps Doximity move fast without breaking things.

🧰 Tools & Libraries Mentioned

- Ruby on Rails – The web framework powering Doximity’s monolith and many of their services.  

- GraphQL-Ruby – Ruby gem for building GraphQL APIs in Rails.  

- BatchLoader– Helps reduce N+1 queries in GraphQL.  

- Vue.js – Their chosen frontend framework for building single-page applications.  

- Packwerk – Helps enforce modular boundaries in their Rails monolith.  

- Departure – Used for safe database migrations on large datasets.  

- Thor – Used to run one-off CLI scripts with easier testability.  

- rake-ui – Internal tool for triggering Rake tasks via a web UI.  

- AnyCable – Go-based replacement for ActionCable to support realtime features at scale.  

- Docker – Powers consistent local dev and containerized environments.  

- Firebase – Used for push notifications in mobile apps.  

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On Rails is a podcast focused on real-world technical decision-making, exploring how teams are scaling, architecting, and solving complex challenges with Rails. 

On Rails is brought to you by The Rails Foundation, and hosted by Robby Russell of Planet Argon, a consultancy that helps teams modernize their Ruby on Rails applications.

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 readers across web and mobile.

We discuss lessons from launching a PWA, shifting to Turbo Native for cross-platform support, and navigating challenges like in-app purchases and data syncing between systems. Nadia also talks about the bold decision to move from Heroku to YugabyteDB to support growing workloads, and why she decided against hiring a team to manage it.

We also explore what it means to remain a solo developer by choice, the value of the Rails community, and why Ruby on Rails continues to be the framework that powers her entire business. 

Platforms & Distribution

• The StoryGraph – Nadia’s solo-built reading and book tracking platform 
• Apple App Store – The StoryGraph
• Google Play Store – StoryGraph 
• Progressive Web Apps (MDN) – Alternative mobile delivery method initially explored

Tools, Libraries & Services

• Ruby on Rails – The primary framework powering The StoryGraph 
• Turbo / Hotwire Native – Used to support mobile apps with shared Rails backend 
• Devise (GitHub) – Authentication library for Rails 
• Sidekiq – Background job processor 
• Makara (GitHub) – Database proxy for master/replica load splitting 
• Heroku – Former hosting platform for The StoryGraph 
• YugabyteDB – Postgres-compatible distributed database chosen for scaling 
• CTEs (Common Table Expressions) – Used for optimizing queries across distributed data
• Linear – Project management tool currently used by Nadia

Books

• Ruby Under a Microscope by Pat Shaughnessy – A deep dive into Ruby internals 

Send us Fan Mail

On Rails is a podcast focused on real-world technical decision-making, exploring how teams are scaling, architecting, and solving complex challenges with Rails. 

On Rails is brought to you by The Rails Foundation, and hosted by Robby Russell of Planet Argon, a consultancy that helps teams modernize their Ruby on Rails applications.

Jean Boussier, Senior Staff Engineer at Shopify and member of the Rails Core team, joins Robby to dig into the performance realities behind modern Rails apps.

They explore what it means to be IO-bound or CPU-bound, how Ruby’s Global VM Lock affects concurrency, and why "fast" is too vague to be useful. Jean explains why instrumentation is often the missing piece and shares thoughtful approaches to using background jobs with intention.

They also talk about gem dependencies. The gems in your `Gemfile` are not magic. If your app depends on them, you should understand them. You can read the code. You can patch it. You can make it your own.

This episode is a reminder that Rails is not a black box. It is a system you can study, shape, and improve. The more you learn how it works, the more confidently you can build with it.

🔗 References & Resources Mentioned

- 📖 Crafting Interpreters – A book Jean recommends for understanding how interpreters and Ruby internals work  

- 🧵 GVL Tools (Shopify gem) – A tool for measuring thread contention in Ruby apps  

- 📊 AppSignal – Monitoring platform that integrates with GVL instrumentation  

- 🚢 ShipIt Engine – Shopify’s open-source deployment tool  

- 🔒 Ruby’s Global VM Lock – Overview of what the GVL is and how it works  

- 🦄 Unicorn – A classic preforking Ruby web server  

- 🐆 Puma – A multi-threaded Ruby/Rack web server  

- 🔀 Pitchfork – Shopify’s fork of Unicorn, optimized for their infrastructure  

- ⚙️ ActiveRecord Async Queries – Jean’s Rails Core contribution for backgrounding slow queries  

- 🔗 GraphQL – Used at Shopify to structure and query API data

Send us Fan Mail

On Rails is a podcast focused on real-world technical decision-making, exploring how teams are scaling, architecting, and solving complex challenges with Rails. 

On Rails is brought to you by The Rails Foundation, and hosted by Robby Russell of Planet Argon, a consultancy that helps teams modernize their Ruby on Rails applications.

In this episode of ‘On Rails’, host Robby Russell (@planetargon) chats with Rosa Gutiérrez, Principal Programmer at 37signals, about the technical decisions behind Solid Queue - a database-backed job queue replacing Resque in their Rails apps.

Rosa dives into why her team built Solid Queue, how it improves reliability, visibility, and maintainability, and the challenges of migrating live apps like Hey during active development. Learn how they tackled recurring jobs, long-running tasks, and testing strategies, plus insights on system design, scaling, and the joy of deleting old code.

Topics:

• Why 37signals replaced Resque
• Building a job queue with ActiveJob + MySQL
• Transparent job states & using Mission Control as a dashboard
• Migrating with minimal impact
• Best practices for recurring and long-running jobs
• Recommended tools, testing gems, and dev books

Links:

• Rosa's migration script for scheduled jobs from Resque to Solid Queue
• Acidic Job
• Chaotic Job
• Rosa.codes
• Rosa’s videos on Ruby Events
• Rosa on the 37signals Dev blog
• Rosa on Github
• Rosa on LinkedIn
• Book Recommendation: Refactoring, Second Edition by Martin Fowler
  
  

#RubyOnRails #SolidQueue #BackgroundJobs #37signals #OnRailsPodcast

Send us Fan Mail

On Rails is a podcast focused on real-world technical decision-making, exploring how teams are scaling, architecting, and solving complex challenges with Rails. 

On Rails is brought to you by The Rails Foundation, and hosted by Robby Russell of Planet Argon, a consultancy that helps teams modernize their Ruby on Rails applications.

Jason Meller, founder of Kolide (acquired by 1Password in 2023) and now VP of Product at 1Password, joins Robby for a conversation about a career at the intersection of Rails, cybersecurity, and building.

They dig into why Rails has become one of the most token-efficient architectures for LLM-assisted development, and why that advantage matters as token costs increasingly shape what's worth building. 

Jason also shares what he's learned about keeping developer environments secure as agentic tools become part of everyday workflows, covering 1Password's open-source SCAM benchmark, how LLMs handle credentials when operating autonomously, and practical steps developers, founders, and engineering leaders can take to stay ahead of it.

Tools & Products

• 1Password (https://1password.com)
• Kolide (https://kolide.com)
• Cursor (https://cursor.com)
• Claude / Claude Opus by Anthropic (https://anthropic.com/claude)
• OpenAI Codex (https://openai.com)
• Lovable (https://lovable.dev)
• CrowdStrike (https://crowdstrike.com)
• GitLab (https://gitlab.com)
• Oh My Zsh (https://ohmyzsh.sh)
• Wiz (https://wiz.io)

Projects & Benchmarks

• SCAM Benchmark by 1Password (https://github.com/1Password/scam)
• OpenClaw (open-source agentic AI tool)
• Honest Security Manifesto (https://honest.security)
• 1Password Environments for Developers (https://developer.1password.com/docs/cli/secrets-environment-variables)
• The Rails Foundation (https://rubyonrails.org/foundation)

Books

• You Can Stop Stupid: Stopping Losses from Accidental and Malicious Actions by Ira Winkler & Tracy Celaya Brown (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1119566711)

Send us Fan Mail

On Rails is a podcast focused on real-world technical decision-making, exploring how teams are scaling, architecting, and solving complex challenges with Rails. 

On Rails is brought to you by The Rails Foundation, and hosted by Robby Russell of Planet Argon, a consultancy that helps teams modernize their Ruby on Rails applications.

In this episode of On Rails, Robby is joined by Brian Scanlan, Senior Principal Engineer at Intercom, where a 15-year-old Rails monolith with millions of lines of code sits at the heart of the business.

Brian shares how Intercom's philosophy of being "technically conservative" has kept their engineering organization productive and focused on shipping product rather than managing infrastructure complexity, and on Intercom's all-in bet on Claude Code as their singular AI tool, now generating over 95% of daily code, with over 1,000 weekly users across the company including non-engineers in sales, marketing, and finance. Brian explains their approach to automated code review and PR approvals, how they built a Rails console MCP that lets Claude run production queries (with non-engineers as the top users), their layered plugin and skills architecture, and where AI still falls short in open-ended debugging, using the metaphor of commercial airline pilots who know when to disengage the autopilot.

Tools & Libraries Mentioned

• Claude Code — AI coding agent (mandated tool at Intercom) — https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code/overview
• Rotoscope — Shopify's tool for identifying test subsets — https://github.com/Shopify/rotoscope
• Honeycomb — Observability and tracing — https://www.honeycomb.io/
• RuboCop — Ruby linting and static analysis — https://rubocop.org/
• Snowflake — Cloud data warehouse — https://www.snowflake.com/
• Datadog — Monitoring and metrics — https://www.datadoghq.com/
• GitHub Dependabot — Automated dependency updates — https://github.com/dependabot
• Console1984 — Rails console audit trail gem — https://github.com/basecamp/console1984
•  Playwright — Browser automation (mentioned re: token consumption) — https://playwright.dev/

Books Mentioned

•  Designing Data-Intensive Applications by Martin Kleppmann 

Blog Posts Mentioned

•  Choose Boring Technology by Dan McKinley — https://mcfunley.com/choose-boring-technology

Send us Fan Mail

On Rails is a podcast focused on real-world technical decision-making, exploring how teams are scaling, architecting, and solving complex challenges with Rails. 

On Rails is brought to you by The Rails Foundation, and hosted by Robby Russell of Planet Argon, a consultancy that helps teams modernize their Ruby on Rails applications.

In this episode of On Rails, Robby is joined by Simone Carletti, CTO of DNSimple, where Rails has sat at the core of a globally distributed DNS platform since the company launched in 2010. Simone walks through how DNSimple's infrastructure is organized across three primary languages - Ruby on Rails, Go, and Erlang - each chosen deliberately for the role it plays: Rails powering the main application and API, Go handling the zone server, and Erlang running their custom-built name servers. He explains why Rails has remained central even as the platform grew well beyond a typical web app, and what it takes to keep a long-lived codebase healthy with a lean team of around 15 engineers.

Tools & Libraries Mentioned

Sidekiq: Background job processing (enterprise edition).

RSpec: Testing framework.

Knapsack: Parallel test suite splitting.

Lograge: Structured JSON logging for Rails.

ViewComponent: Component-based view layer for Rails.

Hanami: Ruby web framework, used for portions of the DNSimple API.

PostgreSQL: Primary relational database.

ClickHouse: Analytics database for DNS query log processing.

Erlang/OTP: Runtime for DNSimple's custom name server (ErlyDNS).

Go: Language powering DNSimple's zone server.

Docker / Docker Compose: Used to run the full DNSimple infrastructure stack locally.

Cursor / Claude Code: AI coding tools adopted across the DNSimple team.

Terraform / Infrastructure as Code: Used to manage DNSimple's own domains and GitHub repositories.

Books Mentioned

Eloquent Ruby by Russ Olsen

Design Patterns (Gang of Four)

Send us Fan Mail

On Rails is a podcast focused on real-world technical decision-making, exploring how teams are scaling, architecting, and solving complex challenges with Rails. 

On Rails is brought to you by The Rails Foundation, and hosted by Robby Russell of Planet Argon, a consultancy that helps teams modernize their Ruby on Rails applications.