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 x Prairie Postges @ Deinde Financial
Deinde Financial - Chicago Office, 120 S. LaSalle St., Suite 1600, Chicago, IL 60603, Chicago, IL, USSpeakers:
🎤 **Steven Zelaznik (in person) -**The Multi-Terabyte Trust Exercise: Validating Massive Postgres Migrations
Moving a self-hosted Postgres instance to a managed service like Azure is more than a data transfer—it’s a high-stakes mission where "spot-checking" simply won't cut it. When downtime is limited and a risk-averse client demands absolute proof of data integrity, you can’t rely on luck.This talk tells the story of migrating a multi-terabyte database with millions of rows by building a custom, Ruby-orchestrated validation framework. We’ll move beyond simple row counts to explore how we used pgcrypto, custom aggregate functions, and information_schema introspection to generate cryptographic proof that every byte arrived safely. We’ll also dive into the "Third Act Twists"—from the hidden time-tax of generated columns to the "string paradox" of JSON and binary data—and why a successful migration is actually won during the dry run.
Moving a self-hosted Postgres instance to a managed service like Azure is more than a data transfer—it’s a high-stakes mission where "spot-checking" simply won't cut it. When downtime is limited and a risk-averse client demands absolute proof of data integrity, you can’t rely on luck.
This session tells the story of migrating a multi-terabyte database with millions of rows by building a custom, Ruby-orchestrated validation framework. We’ll move beyond simple row counts to explore how we used pgcrypto, custom aggregate functions, and information_schema introspection to generate cryptographic proof that every byte arrived safely. We’ll also dive into the "Third Act Twists"—from the hidden time-tax of generated columns to the "string paradox" of JSON and binary data—and why a successful migration is actually won during the dry run.
In this talk you will see:
Cryptographic Certainty: How to build "reduce-style" custom aggregates to hash entire tables into a single verifiable string.
The Ruby Orchestrator: Using scripts to introspect information_schema and dynamically generate type-aware validation queries.
Performance Triage: Strategies for identifying immutable tables to run pre-checks and using idempotent triggers to backfill hashes for legacy binary data.
Managed Service Gotchas: Navigating Azure-specific hurdles like NOT VALID foreign keys, generated column latency, and synchronization strategies.
The Philosophy of the Dry Run: Why validation logic must be tested as rigorously as the migration itself to maintain user trust.
Cryptographic Certainty: How to build "reduce-style" custom aggregates to hash entire tables into a single verifiable string.
The Ruby Orchestrator: Using scripts to introspect information_schema and dynamically generate type-aware validation queries.
Performance Triage: Strategies for identifying immutable tables to run pre-checks and using idempotent triggers to backfill hashes for legacy binary data.
Managed Service Gotchas: Navigating Azure-specific hurdles like NOT VALID foreign keys, generated column latency, and synchronization strategies.
The Philosophy of the Dry Run: Why validation logic must be tested as rigorously as the migration itself to maintain user trust.
Location:
Deinde Financial - 120 S. LaSalle St., Suite 1600, Chicago, IL 60603Location Details:
- In person attendees MUST Register/RSVP with your First + Last name
- For folks who would rather not have their Meetup Display name be first + last name OR for folks who do NOT have a meetup account. Please RSVP via this form (https://forms.gle/oKbX26tQXDNBhBdH6 )
- Valid Photo ID required upon checkin.
- Note: Our host location also requires us to send a list of attendees ahead of time to get them registered with building security, so please update your Meetup name to your first + last name. (If not comfortable with doing so, feel free to DM (me) Michelle or email michelle@zooniverse.org and title the email 'October 2026 ChicagoRuby Meetup' with your First + Last name or your First + email so that we can get you registered with building security for the event.)
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.15 attendees
Past events
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