𪍠Newsletter WoR #66: a sad month for the Ruby and Rails community
A monthly newsletter about Ruby on Rails and the web
In this issue, we discuss the latest news in the Ruby and Rails communityâyes, code is politicalâwe go from prompt engineering to context engineering, we start using Python, we take our mind off things thanks to video games with cats.
đ French version (version française)
Web News đď¸
Weâve come to the point where nothing new seems to be written about AI: all the opinion pieces and predictions about the future seem the same since March, so weâre very relieved as we write these lines. Anyway, what we found interesting was the reminder that weâre only at the beginning of the Internet and that innovations will not stop, so no, it is never too late to learn to code, explore a new subject, improve things, etc. Homo sapiens made variations of tools from simple flint for 300,000 years, so imagine what we can still do with the Internet and for how many years to come.
đ¤ News in Brief
There was a lot of coverage of this in the last month: a new attack against NPM, as narrated here by Carly Page.
Postgres 18 was released and Elizabeth Christensen tells us all about the new features.
WASM 3.0 is now live. Honest question: does anyone still believe in WASM for the web? (let us know in the comments), or maybe youâre cynical like this user on a Reddit: âIt feels like WASM for the web has been 2 years away from general adoption for the past 10 yearsâ
Google chose the Zed code editor to integrate Gemini CLI.
GraphQL is 10 years old and to celebrate it pulled an Angular 8: its home page has been resigned.
JS framework birth announcement: dagger.js.
Ruby and Rails News đ¤ď¸
The strength of the Ruby and Rails community comes from its contributors (who are oftentimes volunteers). Unfortunately two events in the past month have either re-opened an old confidence crisis, or created a new one. When this happens contributors leave and this weakens the community. Now more than ever, itâs time to listen to them.
We are surprised by the platform given to DHH, the creator of Rails (whose political positions we condemned three years ago) in mainstream Ruby newsletters and some conferences. An open letter was published, calling for the Rails team and the Ruby community to cut ties with DHH because of his remarks. The Ruby community has a DHH problem sheds some light on the background surrounding this.
Early September, Ruby Central took ownership of RubyGems, as Ellen Dash alerts. Ellen as well as Josef Ĺ imĂĄnek ended up resigning. An article to understand what happened: Shopify, pulling strings at Ruby Central, forces Bundler and RubyGems takeover, as well as an analysis of Ruby Centralâs response: Ruby Central Fact Check.
TL;DR: An article that talks about the two matters: Rails Needs New Governance.
đ¤ News in Brief
Good news: the RubyMine editor is now free for non-commercial use (learning, non-profit open-source projects, hobbyâŚ)
Videos from Rails World 2025 has been published and Amanda Perino did a recap: Rails World 2025 Recap - All talks now online!
rv, a new Ruby version manager, as presented by Sarah Gooding
On the Web đ¸ď¸
đ§ââď¸ Deafness and Inclusion
In this video, we learn the difference between âdeafâ and âDeafâ, why deafness is a linguistic and cultural issue as well as a medical one, but especially how to plan inclusive designs that benefit everyone: subtitles, multimedia, clear language, diversity of communication channelsâŚ
⨠Inclusive Design: Designing for Deaf People Helps Everyone - Marie van Driessche
đ Get In, Loser ! Weâre Doing Context Engineering Now
Itâs hot off the press and itâs started to become the new buzzword you can use in interviews: context engineering (okay, maybe itâs been a thing since the summer). At any rate you use context engineering if you built LLM apps like AI agents. In this video youâll learn what it is and how it differs from prompt engineering.
⨠Context Engineering Clearly Explained - Tina Huang
𪍠Motivation!
Despite all the goodwill in the world, sometimes that task you have to do just isnât motivating enough in itself. Instead of overthrowing liberalismâor perhaps to get started on thatâthis article will help you understand lack of motivation and provide techniques to get down to work anyway.
⨠How to Motivate Yourself To Do A Thing You Donât Want to Do - Ashley Janssen
Some Code đť
đ¨ CSS vs JavaScript: Itâs Over. I have the high ground.
There was already the repo You-Dont-Need-JavaScript with a lot of CSS solutions sans JavaScript. In this article, the author provides helpful step by step instructions and calls out the bloat of useless frameworks.
⨠You no longer need JavaScript - Lyra Rebane
đ Keeping Up With Dev News
We recommend this bi-weekly show that will not only give you brilliant conversation starters around the coffee machine at work, but will also tell you the latest news and technical topics, in just 5 to 10 minutes. (Just note that itâs from GitHub so there could be a little bit of bias in comparisons with competitors and solutions presented.)
⨠The Download Show - GitHub - Hosts: Andrea Griffiths, Kedasha Kerr et Cassidy Williams
đ We Donât Hate Snakes
Itâs definitely the year of the snake: first, for Swifties that are hoping âFrom the Vaultâ tracks from the album Reputation to come out, but also because Python is the number one programming language, especially when it comes to skills sought after by employers. If youâre curious about Python and have never written it, nowâs your chance.
⨠Your First Python Project (in Just 9 Lines of Code) - Maya Bello
Fun đ
𧾠A Story of Weaving
Marilou Schultz, from the DinĂŠ people (or âNavajoâ as named by the Spanish colonizers), blends tradition and modernity by creating weaving of integrated circuits. Since the first computer program from Ada Lovelace was inspired by a weaving loom, we can say that weâve come full circle.
⨠A Navajo weaving of an integrated circuit: the 555 timer
đâ⏠Black Cat, White Cat
Submissions for the 2025 js13kGames (JavaScript games under 13 KB) were released. The theme: black cat. Perfect for Halloween month!
⨠Black Cat Games - JS13KGames
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Editors: Camille and Juliette
English version: Jade