2026 Recap: Third Blue Ridge Ruby Conference

"A welcoming, informative, and honestly pretty magical little couple of days Ruby Heart"

2026 Sponsors

Typesense Simpliphy Anonymous Supporter Judoscale FastRuby.io Scout Monitoring HYBRD Avo

Blue Ridge Ruby, Third Time's the Charm 🍀

After a year off, the 3rd Blue Ridge Ruby conference took place in Asheville, NC!

But... how did people like it?


What Did People Have to Say?

Thank you for putting on the kind of conference where you actually have time to think. That's rarer than it should be.
I'm attending my first Blue Ridge Ruby conference... [it] was so inspiring. So many great talks and conversations!
With 100 people and a schedule that gives you room to breathe, you don't have to choose between attending a talk and having a real conversation. You get both.

The Talks

There were 10 featured talks, in addition to ⚡️lightning talks⚡️.

Learning from Permaculture: Sustainable Software Development

John Athayde

State is the First Decision You Never Made

Joël Quenneville

Yes, &…: Ruby's Secret Talent for Improvisation

Ifat Ribon

How To Finish What You Start: Lessons From Actually Shipping a Big Refactor

Annie Kiley

InstiLLMent of Successful Practices in an Agentic World

Kevin Murphy

Terminus: A Hanami + htmx web application for e-ink devices

Brooke Kuhlmann

Your First Open-Source Contribution

Rachael Wright Munn

LLM Telemetry as a First-Class Rails Concern

David Paluy

Optimize Your Mindset (Without Overclocking)

Christine Seeman

5 ways to invest in yourself for the long haul

Thomas Cannon

⚡️Lightning Talks⚡️

Lightning Talk: A Legacy App Strikes Back

David Hill

Lightning Talk: Teaching Claude Code to Upgrade Rails

David Paluy

Lightning Talk: gem-contribute Building what you cannot find

Chris Hagmann

Lightning Talk: What Makes a Good Lightning Talk

Travis Dockter

Lightning Talk: Teaching Claude Code to Upgrade Rails

Ernesto Tagwerker

Lightning Talk: A Conventional Ruby Talk

Joshua Paine

Lightning Talk: Git Lint

Brooke Kuhlmann

Lightning Talk: Our Revels are at an End

John Paul Ashenfelter

Lightning Talk: Beginner's Perspective Learning Ruby in 2026

Joshua Wenning

Lightning Talk: Blue Ridge Ruby App

Katya Sarmiento

Lightning Talk: Meetups

Matt Polito