Rails is 20
Happy Birthday Rails!
A quick note and recognition what a huge milestone just came with the 20th anniversary of the launch of Ruby on Rails, which was originally announced on July 25th, 2004!
A truly groundbreaking framework that is behind so many of the service we know and love over the last 20 years, it made me reflect on my journey and how grateful I am I found Rails.
My Rails Story
Back then I was living in San Francisco, having hung up the headphones on my touring sound engineer days, and was 4 years into turning my hobby in to work as a software developer. I was working in the ringtone business by then - remember those? - and our tech stack was Java, JSP, Servlets. You get the picture.
It wasn’t until late 2005 when I saw the seminal “How to Build a Blog Engine in 15 Minutes with Ruby on Rails” video from dhh when I first heard of Rails. I was immediately intrigued enough to build the blog from the demo, then start putting together some very simple reporting interfaces and tools for work. It really was groundbreaking and fun.
My office at the time was in the “Organic” building at 3rd & Bryant, directly over the road from South Park where another little Ruby on Rails project was getting started, called “Twitter”! or “Twttr” as it was. My memory is a bit fuzzy but I’m certain there were Ruby meetups at the Odeo/Twitter office, and definitely at CNET where a young chap called Chris Wandstrath was often talking about one new plugin or another like cache_fu. I wonder what ever happened to him? ;)
I went on to work at a few more startups in San Francisco over the next few years, always with Rails, before moving to Japan in 2010 to join Cookpad, who were famously one of the biggest Ruby on Rails services at the time. Exciting!
Community
Ruby and Rails has always seemed to have an incredible community, and it’s another thing I am immensely grateful for. I’ve had the chance to meet and work with some incredible folks, and with massive thanks to Cookpad, was able to lead the charge in supporting and attending numerous events and conferences worldwide. Again. Thanks Rails!
Ruby
Rails also introduced me to Ruby, like so many others, and I’ve been fortunate to be working with this incredible match up of expressive language and impressive framework ever since for the last 18 years! After moving back to the UK with Cookpad I was able to invite Matz, Koichi and Endoh-san to Bristol where somehow I manage to pull off an event that is almost unimaginable with Raphael, Tenderlove, and a whole host of open source Ruby and Rails developers.
The Rail Foundation
Lastly, when DHH contacted me in 2021 to pitch his idea of a Foundation to support the future success of Rails I immediately wanted to help. Fortunately through the incredible generosity of the leadership, Cookpad became one of the founding members of the Rails Foundation, and I was nominated to sit on the board. Through the foundation we’ve been able to launch an annual conference which got off to a spectacular start last year in Amsterdam and will be back in Toronto next month as well as numerous programs to improve documentation, tutorials and provide opportunities for people new to the framework.
Thanks DHH, the Core Team, and all contributors
I owe so much of my career and experiences to the joy I’ve had from working with Ruby, working with Rails, working with Ruby people. I can’t thank all those involved enough. What a ride. And here’s to the next 20!
Wrap Up
As always, don’t hesitate to drop me a note via twitter or any other channels listed here.