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RubyKaigi 2023 Recap - In the eyes of a newcomer

Table of content

  1. Introduction
  2. Techtalk
  3. Sponsor booth
  4. Matsumoto
  5. Overall

1. Introduction

Hey there! Before getting into the main dish, let me introduce myself. I’m Meg, and a newcomer to Money Forward, RubyKaigi, and Japan. I started working for Money Forward right after graduating from university and moved to Tokyo from Hanoi, Vietnam in January 2023. Money Forward joined RubyKaigi as a sponsor, and I was fortunate enough to be given the chance to be a part of the team to head to Matsumoto.

For an overlook of the event, RubyKaigi is an annual international conference focused on Ruby. RubyKaigi 2023 was held in Matsumoto, Japan over the course of 3 days with around 1200 participants.

2. Techtalk

The talks were presented either in Japanese or English. But fear not, since the organizers were considerate enough to provide English interpreters for all Japanese talks! Though I was intimidated at first, thinking it might be hard for me, someone with very limited Japanese comprehension skills, to get Japanese presentations, it was such a relief to know they have English support, and for the Japanese talks I went to, speakers also had slides in English.

My personal best 2 talks go to The second oldest bug by Jeremy Evans and Build a mini Ruby debugger in under 300 lines by Stan Lo.

The second oldest bug

The second oldest bug showed a bug of passing a huge number to a method that dated back to 2010, which results in a core dump in Ruby 1.8, has been worked on since then with improvements in resulted behaviors through different Ruby versions, and will be fixed in Ruby 3.3. Jeremy Evans led the audience through the history, guided everyone through the way he found the cause of the bug, and how the bug can be fixed. Moreover, cases that the old bug fix didn’t cover are also explained in detail to answer the question of why they behave the way they do. The speaker also gave his opinions about choosing between costs and benefits when he managed to fix all the related bugs due to the rarity of the behavior that causes the bug. One of the lessons that he pointed out truly piqued my interest: Old bugs can be fixed. The slide is shared on Jeremy Evans’ Twitter account:

Build a mini Ruby debugger in under 300 lines

Build a mini Ruby debugger in under 300 lines was an interesting talk that was, in my opinion, really newbie-friendly, was explained and presented clearly through all the tools which were used and the steps to build and improve the debugger in hand. Similar to The second oldest bug, guiding the audience step by step through the way of creating the debugger made it really pleasant to follow and get a grasp of how things build up, and also it showed the creator’s train of thought, which is, in my opinion, a great way to learn from others. At the end of his talk, Stan Lo demonstrated different types of debuggers according to their equivalent level of abstraction as a way to help make decisions about when and which tool we should go for to debug our programs. The talk raised a question in me about what I can do to make something I use daily like binding be more of help along with other tools introduced in this, such as TracePoint and Reline. Stan Lo shared his slide and source code here in this thread if you are interested!

3. Sponsor booth

Money Forward had our own booth as a sponsor and greeted lots of amazing people visiting! We had some adorable gifts for friends who stopped by and conducted a small survey along with code review challenges that got renewed every day in those 3 memorable days! Friends from different companies, different countries stopped by our booth. RubyKaigi is not only about technology but also about making friends!

The pamphlet for useful English phrases used in code review received good responses, and we sincerely hope it can somehow help everyone and the trend of globalization everywhere in our world today! Please try to use them in your next PR review!

The survey was about what people cherish in their work, which is also Money Forward’s cultural values. Fun outnumbered other values! My choice was Fun as well, how about you? Which value would you choose? Pockets of lucky (chocolate) money was given to friends that helped us fill out the survey. Isn't it cute? 🥰

The code review section also got lots of feedback. We took good care of what was written on the board and discussed about them carefully. It’s always good to know what other people might think of the same thing. Some take it as a good implementation, some don’t, but what we can learn from this is how people think and the beauty of diversity. I personally learned something from everyone’s comments as well. There was definitely a lot of "Oh, indeed!" moments while reading the answers.

There was a Rubyist map placed in the hall by the organizers! Look how heartwarming it is to see Rubyists coming from different parts of the world! Do you see friends coming from your home country here?

4. Matsumoto

Matsumoto is a lovely, peaceful city that I always felt myself at ease during all 4 days I was there. The warm welcome from Matsumoto and its people left the deepest impression on me. A cafe owner even cheered me up by saying “Do you attend RubyKaigi? Please give it your best!” when I visited her shop for lunch!

I visited Matsumoto Castle, bought a big bag of souvenirs, and tried soba, Matsumoto’s famous dish. And that’s the best soba I have ever had since I came to Japan! Apple juice that was provided by the organizers was on another level; The lunches I had at random cafeterias were great. I must admit that my stomach was delighted to be in Matsumoto.

5. Overall

The opportunity to learn is not through techtalks but also through booths when sponsors have different quizzes, or in our case, code review challenges. Besides, gaining knowledge is one thing but attending a conference can boost your motivation to keep reading, keep learning, and keep moving forward when you are literally sunken in a crowd of all enthusiasts, that’s what I’ve come to believe after this event.

It was a great experience for me at RubyKaigi to enjoy the talks, learn new things, make friends, and connect with other coworkers that I haven't had a chance to work with in a few months I have been in our company. Though as a newcomer at the conference, I never once felt out of place with the help of everyone!

To end this blog, I would like to thank the speakers for the amazing talks, thank the organizers for giving us the chance to immerse ourselves in Ruby community, and thank all the Rubyfriends who paid us a visit and had a chat with us! Hope to see you all again next year in Naha, Okinawa!