RubyConf 2026 Is Not a Safe Environment for Everyone

RubyConf 2026 is not a safe environment for everyone. They have an in-group and an out-group. If you're in the in-group, they will treat you well and accept talk proposals by you even if you don't have top-level skills in Software Engineering. If you're in the out-group, it doesn't matter if you launch rockets to the moon successfully on your own or win the approval of Matz himself, you will be excluded and discriminated against: 

https://andymaleh.blogspot.com/2026/06/rubyconf-has-joined-railsconfrailsworld.html

If that weren't true, then RubyConf's folks would not be afraid to address the issue of feeling discriminated against for the benefit of keeping their reputation clean. Alas, like all discriminators out there, they cower and hide instead of addressing the issue because the discrimination is 100% real. A discriminator usually discriminates because they don't see everyone as equal or because they're frauds and don't have the energy to treat everyone equally, so if discrimination is brought up to them, they won't take it seriously. 

Respectful treatment means to treat someone well and fairly for what they have accomplished and what they offer. I realize I could buy a ticket to the conference, but rejecting a talk by me that won the approval of Matz, the creator of the Ruby programming language that is the reason for the conference existing means I have earned the right to talk about the subject that I won an award from Matz for. Otherwise, I am being robbed and discriminated against. This is no different from how the MLB (Major League Baseball) used to mistreat Afro Americans and relegate them to playing in the Negro league instead of the Major League. Telling someone who can perform at the major league level they are unaccepted as a player there, but could attend if they want is most definitely discrimination 100%. 

By the way, under other circumstances, if I had no project to talk about, I would be 100% OK with attending RubyConf instead of presenting as I would normally want to support other speakers and learn from them. But, in 2026, the issue is if they rejected a talk by someone who won an award from Matz at a near impossible international competition to win, it means they probably rejected a lot of top-quality talks and accepted many subpar mediocre quality talks. I don't want to go to a conference in which I become mediocre by attending mediocre talks. Excellence and unexcellence are infectious. The next thing I know after hanging out with unexcellent speakers at RubyConf 2026 is I'll become unexcellent and subpar like them. This is no different from entire mediocre communities like the React.js comunity and others where the blind are leading the blind into a pit, but everyone is celebrating the popularity of mediocre ideas and technologies (meaning they only perceive themselves as being smart, but objectively, they're all performing suboptimally for customers and don't provide the best smartest work). No thanks!!!

RubyConf 2026 is a cesspool of discirmination and exclusion:

https://andymaleh.blogspot.com/2026/07/reminder-that-rubyconf-2026-is-cesspool.html

One might think that RubyConf's folks are too busy to look into the discrimination claim. But in fact, I contacted them about the perceived discrimination about a month ago. They had all the time of the world to look into the discrimination and lack of appreciation of excellence (an equally serious matter). Also, if they claim to be "excellent", "inclusive" and "diverse", then looking into discrimination and lack of appreciation of excllence would be the top priority of RubyConf, alas they're a mediocre discriminatory conference in 2026 that doesn't put excellence and lack of discrimination at the top of their priorities, just like any dictator at a third world country would act. They're no different. It's a fraud of a conference in 2026.

The fact that it doesn't bother them to have these blog posts published as to want to contact me and settle the issue of discrimination against me proves they are discriminators 100% because discriminators aren't bothered by having discrimination reported to them, but real non-discriminators put ethics and good equal treatment of everyone first above everything else.

I have talked extensively about covert discrimination in the Ruby community in the past, including microdiscrimination / personal discrimination (meaning discrimination against a single person, which makes the discrimination escape protections available for minority groups). Ignoring someone without attempting to resolve things amicably definitely falls under covert discrimination:

https://andymaleh.blogspot.com/2024/12/how-to-spot-covert-discrimination-in.html

Ruby Open-Source Innovation Process Expectation vs Reality

Expectation regarding the Ruby open-source innovation process:

1- I stumble upon a problem at my job in our Ruby application.

2- I build a solution for it in an open-source project (e.g. the ability to write the Frontend with a Ruby Frontend Framework instead of using an inferior JavaScript library like React).

3- I win an award for my open-source project by Matz, the creator of Ruby.

4- I get accepted to present my open-source project at Ruby conferences.

5- Ruby Software Engineers adopt the new highly innovative open-source project, benefiting themselves and their customers greatly. 

Reality regarding the Ruby open-source innovation process:

It doesn't matter how innovative an open-source project that you build is in your free time as a free beneficial contribution for the Ruby community. Even if your open-source project won an award from the creator of Ruby himself at an international tech competition that very few devs won, the project will get rejected from RubyConf due to discrimination and lack of appreciation for excellence from everyone equally. If you're in their discriminatory out-group instead of their in-group and/or you cover a topic that might upset RubyConf folks who aren't 100% for Ruby (e.g. unseating React/JavaScript with Ruby), you are excluded (even if your talk's project has zero competition), to the detriment of the Ruby community at large. 

Learn more:

https://andymaleh.blogspot.com/2026/06/rubyconf-has-joined-railsconfrailsworld.html

Reminder that RubyConf 2026 is a Cesspool of Discrimination and Exclusion

Just a reminder that RubyConf has become a Cesspool of Discrimination and Exclusion. In 2026, it doesn't matter how well accomplished a Ruby Software Engineer is in the Ruby community as even if they win awards by the creator of Ruby himself, if they propose a topic that is taboo with the organizers of RubyConf, they are excluded and discriminated against, without even providing a valid reason for the exclusion. It's one thing if there was an intelligent rational reason. It's another when the organizers just run away in cowardice from addressing the discrimination, which is an act of discrimination/exclusion as ignoring someone is a form of exclusion too. 

The bottom line of RubyConf is that if you are one of the "favored ones" that RubyConf give preferential treatment to, then even if you haven't won any awards from the creator of Ruby or lack complete mastery in Software Engineering, due to discrimination, you are given more importance over someone with more skills and experience. 

That means RubyConf mostly has subpar and suboptimal talks. Intelligent well-accomplished master Software Engineers can't trust that they would receive top-level talks at RubyConf anymore in 2026. 

Basically, RubyConf discriminates against people by seeing them in multiple groups (unlike normal non-discriminatory conferences that always recognize and reward excellence):

• Excluded ones: those people can build a rocket that reaches the moon and win awards from the creator of Ruby, but their efforts are not appreciated by RubyConf or respected as to give them a speaking platform if they propose a topic that is deemed too novel, outside the box, or taboo by RubyConf (like Frontend Ruby Development)
• "Favored ones": those people are liked not always for top-merit or rational reasons, but often for emotional reasons too, a form of discrimination by not seeing everyone as equal, yet deeming some people as above others even without having the best or top-level accomplishments.

Meaning, the "favored ones" will be allowed to "have fun" at the conference and think it is "diverse and inclusive" when in fact it's all a lie. They do it with a double standard offering that to some people only, but not offering well-deserved respect to everyone who earned it, and without even being loving enough as to explain why a talk about an open source project that won an award by Matz himself at a very difficult international competition is getting rejected at the conference as to help the person follow a "better path" in their career if they're truly wrong.

Part of the reason why this is a big problem is because the project they excluded offers an amazingly simple Ruby solution to a very complicated and divisive problem in the Ruby on Rails community. Then again, perhaps it is knocking JavaScript around too much for the liking of fake Rubyists who work at RubyConf and that's the true reason why they "didn't find the project interesting" when in fact Matz the creator of Ruby who's smarter and more accomplished/important than all of them didn't just find it interesting, but was willing to give it an award at a difficult international competition along with other smart judges. 

By attending RubyConf, you're supporting this kind of discrimination and exclusion, plus lack of appreciation of excellence, which means RubyConf is unexcellent and is mostly sharing dumb "yet popular" talks with the public. If anyone has any shred of ethics, self respect, or excellence, they would boycott RubyConf and contact them about this grand discrimination offense committed by them. 

Funny, I told my girlfriend about this a while ago, and she recently asked me if any of the RubyConf folks reached out to me to apologize or explain themselves, expecting that normal people would do that. I told her no, they're just unethical discriminatory cowards (their guys aren't real men) who don't care to explain this or apologize about it. Though, I personally am always open to forgiving someone if they are willing to apologize or explain what I might have done wrong to deserve this. Any other reaction shows apathy and more discrimination (ignoring someone is exclusion, so another form of discrimination). 

In a way, I am very happy I won an award from Matz in 2025 because it exposed the Ruby community for all the discrimination it has against certain people/topics in the community, which even reached RubyConf eventually.

Ruby Memes 2026-06-26: The Ruby Clown

The brief version:

The explained version:

The Ruby Community in 2026

The Ruby community in 2026 is dominated by mean discriminators and their benefactors (they're about 50% of the community at least). Many devs in the Ruby community who are indirect (unconscious) or direct benefactors of discrimination have this attitude of "well, if this discrimination problem is not affecting me, then I don't care". So, they're not real Rubyists because real Rubyists always care about being nice to everyone in the community.

Basically, the #Ruby community in 2026 is comprised of 3 groups. 

The 1st group is the true Rubyists who are customer focused with their work (not popularity focused) and who are sincere nice people, well-educated, and well-accomplished with often a good number of free open-source contributions and talks for the benefit of the Ruby community at large. 

The 2nd group is the elites (devs who work at organizations like RubyConf, 37Signals, and Shopify) who act like they're not required to treat everyone with equality and respect, and often discriminate against certain people in the community, treating them like dirt while boosting other people in the community who don't have merit in Ruby or in general at their expense. When such companies hire unqualified devs by giving them false privilege, they don't always choose them based on true merit or Software Engineering education and skills, yet based on whether they belong to certain elitist circles, they are alphas/cool, or they are good looking to use them as the product, not their Software Engineering education or skills. That's an incredible form of blatant discrimination and preferential treatment. 

The 3rd group is the benefactors of false privilege. It's mostly people who have no completed university degrees, no big accomplishments in open-source, no substantial Software Engineering skills beyond Monkey-See-Monkey-Do and copying "famous devs" at large corps without true understanding, but they're treated like they're better than the 1st group because the 2nd group gets off on the feeling of acting like benevolent heroes by giving false privilege to people in the 3rd group who don't deserve it at the expense of people in the 1st group who have earned everything with sincere effort and smart ethical excellent work. In other words, people in the 3rd group are living off of stolen good via false privilege and preferential treatment while making the Ruby community worse. I have run into people of the 3rd group who work for organizations of people in the 2nd group that came across as extremely rude/mean, unintelligent/unskilled, apathetic towards treating everyone with equality, niceness, and respect, and quite aloof or nasty in some instances. 

This only started happening more with the rise of Shopify as explained in this article:

https://andymaleh.blogspot.com/2025/06/shopify-has-been-bad-for-ruby-community.html

In other words, RubyConf in 2026 is FakeRubyConf. Anyone attending it is endorsing discrimination and unexcellence. Learn more about that here: 

https://andymaleh.blogspot.com/2026/06/rubyconf-has-joined-railsconfrailsworld.html 

I've said it in previous posts. If the people perceived as mean discriminators were to courageously address this issue and apologize for it if needed, I'd take down these posts, alas the coward's plea is often the only response provided. They're not real men of honor who are willing to face the music and address serious matters like discrimination to demonstrate good will and tell us they care about treating everyone in the Ruby community equally.

Ruby Memes 2026-06-12: The "Cool" Reactionary

 

Andy's Laws of AI in Software Engineering

(Note: this is a live document that could undergo revisions in the future)

I came up with a list of laws in relation to doing general Software Engineering work with reliance on AI, from my experience as a Master Software Engineer experimenting with AI and from observing other Software Developers who experiment with or use AI. 

Law #1: "The more Software Developers use AI, the more valuable Software Engineers who do not use AI become."

Software Engineers who are masters at delivering Software without using AI will actually have increased job security the more Software Developers in the worldwide Software Development community rely on AI to deliver Software without having true mastery over Software Engineering.

As more Software Developers become fully dependent on AI to build Software without truly understanding how AI gets work done, Software Engineers who do understand what is going on under the hood will dwindle and become more valuable than ever. In other words, they will have a competitive advantage over Software Developers who can only deliver Software features with AI as well as Software Developers who have not mastered Software Engineering.

Also, there will always be a need for Software Engineers who can maintain the Software of AI itself.

Law #2: "Software Developers benefit from AI in direct proportion to how weak they are in Software Engineering"

The weaker Software Developers are at Software Engineering the more they benefit from AI. After all, AI learns from Master Software Engineers and then applies its learnings in code generation done for lower-level Software Developers who lack mastery in Software Engineering. So, users of AI simply place themselves lower in the expertise hierarchy to be on the receiving end of what Master Software Engineers feed AI with their code. This explains why many experts like Linus Torvalds do not find AI very useful while devs who have zero degrees and qualifications feel like they get a lot from AI.

A beneficial thing to learn from this law is that it is more valuable for a Software Developer to hone in their Software Engineering skills (including the completion of university degrees) than to hone in their AI usage skills because if they achieve mastery over Software Engineering, they would cease to need AI to do their job well for customers. In other words, if a Software Developer feels like they benefit from AI even a little bit, then that means they have some unhandled weakness and are lacking some skills in Software Engineering they could be improving instead. Using AI after all takes away from the recommended 10,000 hours of Software Engineering practice to achieve mastery.

Law #3: "AI's speed is negated when it produces Software features faster than customers can test and learn."

Code generation is not the bottleneck when customers still have to test every Software feature at a human pace to provide real human feedback before iterating further for future improvement. So, given that customers still need to provide human feedback with non-AI testing, that negates the need for Software Engineers to produce code faster, rendering AI's speed benefits moot. Producing code with Lean Software Processes is fast enough for that need. 

Furthermore, Software has a limit to acceptable complexity by customers in relation to how many features it contains. So, if customers get too many features, they get overwhelmed, and that also invalidates the benefits of AI's speed. In other words, customers prefer quality over quantity.