As the Last RailsConf approaches, the nostalgic feeling gets stronger. It’s the end of an era, a celebration of the history of Ruby on Rails and its community.

Driven by this feeling, we published a series of posts about Ruby, Rails, and the history of RailsConf. We went from the history of Rails, the conventions that made it so special, to the state of Rails today in the AI era.

Check out the list of posts we published in this series:

• What It Takes To Foster A Community Around Rails
• The History of Ruby on Rails: Code, Convention, and a Little Rebellion
• Ruby on Rails: The Open-Source Blueprint
• A Journey Through the Greatest Ruby on Rails Milestones
• The Overlooked Power of Rails in the Age of AI

I’m blessed to be part of the last RailsConf ever. In this post, I share my expectations for the conference as a spectator and as a speaker.

The Last RailsConf

I watched a lot of talks from past RailsConfs and I got a nice feeling about the community. A wide range of topics, some more specific to Rails, some more general, but all focusing on the empowerment of the developers and the community.

As mentioned in the first article of the series, we kinda had something similar to this in Brazil with RubyConf, despite the name.

This is a characteristic I love. Ruby on Rails is the main tool, but there’s the surrounding stuff that empowers you as a professional. The community is open-minded and curious, always looking for the best tool for the job.

I always had this feeling about RailsConf, but then DHH put it in words in the RailsWorld 2023 keynote:

We should be the Renaissance Developers. […] interested in all aspects of a problem, the design, the implementation, the deployment, and the maintenance.

The Rails community is composed of so many smart and kind people. Being there in person is, for me, a great privilege. I hope to meet a lot of them and learn from their experiences.

I think this will be particularly easier due to the structure of the conference. The second day is dedicated to Hacker Spaces, where one can collaborate with other developers and open-source maintainers. This is a great opportunity to build something together with admirable people, those who created and still maintain many of the tools we use every day.

This year’s schedule, as always, is very diverse and promising, with talks/workshops around Community Building (of course), Career Reflections, Rails Internals, Frontend, PWAs and Browser-Powered Rails and AIs in general (it’s 2025 after all).

All of this is related to the theme of the conference: The Future of Rails, Ruby and You.

DHH Comes To a Fireside Chat

Closing the first day of the conference, DHH will be on stage for a Fireside Chat. After what happened previously, this is a very special moment. DHH is the creator of Rails, the one who started it all. It’s very important for a great finale in RailsConf history to have him there, sharing his thoughts and experiences.

The perfect closing keynote

The closing keynote will be given by Aaron Patterson, aka Tenderlove, one of the most beloved figures in the Rails and Ruby community.

I watched a lot of his talks. He’s smart, funny, and has a great way of explaining things, even complex ones. There couldn’t be a better person to close the last RailsConf ever.

Indeed, Tenderlove is right about everything. I’m looking forward to his talk, which promises to be a celebration of the Rails community and its history.

The Future of PWAs on Rails

As a speaker, I have my expectations for my talk, The Future Of: PWAs on Rails. I want to show the value of PWAs, their building blocks, how to integrate them with Rails, and how this fits into the Rails philosophy and ecosystem.

I’ve been experimenting with Workbox and Rails Generators – such a great tool. PWAs on Rails don’t need to be tedious. With the power of these two tools, we can make it simple and joyful to build PWAs with Rails.

What now?

Ruby Central will continue, focusing on the Ruby language and its community. The Rails Foundation will take care of the Rails framework and its ecosystem. This is a good thing: both organizations will be able to focus on their specific needs and goals.

I’m looking forward to seeing you at RailsConf 2025! See you in Philadelphia!

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