About us
ChicagoRuby is a group of Ruby on Rails enthusiasts with events in Chicago and in the surrounding suburbs.
Interested in sponsoring a meetup, giving a talk, or have an idea for a meetup? Please reach out and we can set something up!
Join us on Slack! We created a #chicago-ruby channel within Ruby Central Community Slack channel. Please contact the current organizers to get an invitation to the community Slack channel (if you are not a member of the Slack channel already).
The ChicagoRuby motto: When smart people challenge each other to grow, great things happen!
We want to hear from you!
Interested in speaking but unsure what to talk about? Interested in hearing a specific topic. We have compiled a list of potential topic ideas that members of the community are interested in learning more about.
See: this google spreadsheet for potential talk topic ideas.
For moderation purposes, this spreadsheet is only available for comments and admins will add ideas from comments onto the list.
Reach out to Michelle ([michelle.y.chiruby@gmail.com](mailto:michelle.y.chiruby@gmail.com)) if you have any questions.
Upcoming events
1
ChicagoRuby @ NinjaHoldings
NinjaHoldings, 222 S. Riverside Plaza, Suite 2200, Chicago, IL, USSpeakers:
🎤 Tony Yunker (in person) - Testing ReadOnly Models
Readonly models are a great way to signal that, well, you should only ever read them, not write them. Maybe you have some external system that connects to the database for writes, or maybe your Rails app connects to some data warehouse for some queries or reports.
The problem? Readonly models could create friction in specs, especially if your spec needs persisted records.
Tony will introduce a proposed approach which preserves realistic production behavior in tests without resorting to raw SQL or globally disabling readonly protections.About Tony:
Tony is a software engineer at Hashrocket. He studied mathematics at the University of Illinois, but made the move to software development when he saw the same relationships and patterns in software as in Abstract Algebra.
After starting his career in the .NET world, he discovered open source and Ruby on Rails and never looked back.
He appreciates clean code and fast tests, sound and reliable architecture, and doesn't like when things break.While Tony loves the dynamic nature of Ruby and Javascript, he appreciates the strictness of static types in Typescript and Go. He is a budding Elixir enthusiast.
Outside of work he enjoys drinking coffee, riding bicycles, and going on walks with his dog named Pickle.🎤 Alan Ridlehoover (remote) - Indispensable: What Human Programmers Can Learn from Human Computers
Code used to be something we cultivated by hand. Now machines write it for us, and a quarter of a million tech workers have been laid off in less than a year. If you've been quietly grieving your relationship with code, you're not alone. And you're not the first.In 1958, NASA began replacing its human computers with IBM mainframes. Three women from the segregated West Area Computing Unit — Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, and Katherine Johnson — made themselves indispensable to the mission anyway. Each chose a different strategy: retool, transform, or specify.
Now it's our turn as Rubyists. The mission is still here. The role is not. This talk borrows their strategies, with gratitude, for the transition we're living through now — and shows how to stay indispensable.
This is an upcoming talk for RubyConf 2026 in Las Vegas.
About Alan:
Empathetic leader @ Cisco.
Passionate Rubyist.
Fallible human.
Storyteller. AI skep-thusiast.
Swell photographer. Rusty drummer.
Owner of too many hats, given he only has the one head.Location:
NinjaHoldings
222 S. Riverside Plaza, Suite 2200Location Details:
- Walk-ins allowed (but not recommended as we would like to get a realistic number of attendees for catering)
- Register/RSVP with your First + Last name
- EVERY IN PERSON ATTENDEE MUST FILL OUT THIS REGISTRATION FORM (https://forms.gle/oKbX26tQXDNBhBdH6 )
- Valid Photo ID required upon checkin.
For remote attendance:
Join us via the following Zoom URL.We want to hear from you!
Interested in speaking but unsure what to talk about? Interested in hearing a specific topic? We have compiled a list of potential topic ideas that members of the community are interested in learning more about.
See: this google spreadsheet for potential talk topic ideas.
For moderation purposes, this spreadsheet is only available for comments and admins will add ideas from comments onto the list.
Reach out to Michelle (michelle@zooniverse.org) if you have any questions.10 attendees
Past events
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