This week on My Ruby Story, Charles speaks with Jerome Hardaway. Jerome used to be a panelist on Ruby Rogues and loved the ability to share his knowledge and interact with so many people from the community. He first got into programming by accident when he couldn’t find a job after becoming a veteran. He saw a commercial about job opportunities in coding, ended up finding a book on SQL and taught himself how to program. They talk about where he ran across Ruby on Rails, what he has worked on that he is particularly proud of, what he is doing currently, and more!

This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Takashi Kokubun. Takashi is a template engine hobbyist, is currently working on the JIT Compiler for Ruby 2.6, and is a Ruby on Rails application engineer at Treasure Data. He first got into programming in his first year at university where he learned C in his first part-time job. They talk about why he decided to work with Ruby, the first thing he built with it, and how you would write a templating system. They also touch on what he is working on now, what his plans are for the future, and more!

This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Andy Hunt. Andy has previously been on Ruby Rogues for Episode 277, and is known for his book The Pragmatic Programmer, his company The Pragmatic Bookshelf, and much more. He first got into programming because of his interest in electronic music and his first RadioShack project he created, which led him to finding a book on the future of integrated circuits. They talk about how he found Ruby, why he wrote Programming Ruby, what he is working on now, and more!

This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Jacob Stoebel. Jacob is a Ruby and JavaScript developer and he works for a small company that works with publishers. Jacob first got into programming in high school when he took a computer science class where he messed around with Pascal and C++. He got back into programming after college when he went back to school for programming to try to make his data entry job easier. They talk about his journey pushing the boundaries with technology, how he went about starting his programming career, and more!

This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Amit Choudhary. Amit was previously on Ruby Rogues in January 2018 on episode 345 discussing app failures. Amit is a software developer at Big Binary, where he is a full-stack Ruby developer. He first got into programming when he learned C for a computer engineering course. They talk about how he got into Ruby, what he has done with Ruby, what the Ruby community is like in India, and what he is working on now.

This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to James Shore about his background, how he got into programming, pitfalls that happened along the way, and his Agile story. James Shore is a thought leader in the Agile software development community. He was an early adopter of Agile development and he continues to lead, teach, write, and consult on Agile development processes.

This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to David Hemmat about his educational background, career choices, and suggestions for developers. David is a web developer who works mainly with Ruby on Rails. In the past few years, David has done work for a number of clients including Condé Nast, Six Red Marbles, ShopKeep, and Couplewise. Currently, David is working on a number of personal and professional development projects.

This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Benjamin Wood. Ben and his brother Josh own a consultancy company together called Hint, where they specialize in upgrading Rails apps and run UpgradeRails.com. He first got into programming because he was interested in computer hardware and built a computer out of spare parts for fun as a child. They talk about what led him to Ruby and Rails, what he has learned in throughout his life, especially with running a business, and much more!

This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Catherine Meyers. Catherine first got into programming after a significant career change from being an opera singer to being a developer. Friends of hers suggested that she begin a programming career and she hasn’t looked back since. They talk about boot camps, such as Flatiron School, the importance of life-long learning, how she got into Ruby, and why she loves the language so much.

This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Sam Aaron. Sam is a programmer who likes to try to get other programmers involved and programming in creative ways. Currently, he has been making music with programming with Sonic Pi and teaching children how to do so as well. He first really got into programming when he picked up a graphing calculator when he was in school and would program games and pictures on it. They talk about what led him to Ruby and what led him to create Sonic Pi.

This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Noah Gibbs. Noah works currently at AppFolio as their Ruby Fellow, where he does a lot of measuring and writing about Ruby performance. He also writes a lot for Ruby Weekly about Ruby performance. He first got into programming when was in the third grade and he got to use an Apple II in class. In class, they had to draw on graph paper and then “program” what they drew on their computer, and this fascinated him. They also touch on what led him to Ruby, why he fell in love with it, and what he is most proud of contributing to the Ruby community.

This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Josh Greenwood. Josh was recently on Ruby Rogues and he works for a consulting company called Test Double, where he works remotely with clients all across the country. He first got into programming because he was always around computers because of his Dad, and he always loved playing video games. His first real exposure to programming was when he found an HTML book on his Dad’s bookshelf and he used it to build a website. They talk about what led him to Ruby, what made him fall in love with programming, and much more!

This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Marla Brizel. Marla works at Test Double and has been programming full time for the past four years. She first got into programming when she got a job at a startup where they helped her learn how to program for herself and she fell in love with it. They talk about her background as a project manager and the importance of empathy for the user. They then touch on how she got into Ruby and things that she is particularly proud of contributing to the Ruby community.

This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Mindaugas Mozūras. Mindaugas is from Lithuania and currently works at Vinted. He started about 5 ½ years ago as a software developer writing Ruby and now he the head of engineering at Vinted. He also has written an open source project called Pronto. He first got into programming when he was mesmerized by his father’s work computer and always grew up playing games that had to do with building things. They also touch on how he got into Ruby, what made him fall in love it, how he got his first Ruby job, and what he is working on now.

This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Justin Gordon. Justin first got introduced to programming when he was a kid playing video games and in Jr. High when he took some Basic programming classes. By the time he was in High School, he was learning Pascal. He has always been interested in pursuing programming except for a small time in college when he thought he wanted to pursue investment banking. He first got into Ruby when he went to a meetup and found a startup who were using Ruby on Rails. They also talk about working remotely as well as ShakaCode.

This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Trae Robrock. Trae founded and is currently the CTO of Green Bits which builds POS software for the legal cannabis industry. They have been in business for about 4 years now and are growing as the cannabis industry does. He first got into programming started when he was growing up and was always around computers. He started off writing clients for mIRC where he would write chat bots and code. He got into Ruby when he found that Twitter was written in Rails and noticed that he should probably learn about it so he could get a job after college. Now, he’s focusing on Green Bits and growing his team so that he can make it a successful business.

This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Derek Prior. Derek speaks at conferences more often and is now a development director at Thought Bot. He first got into programming when was 7 or 8 when he got an Apple IIGS for Christmas and he started messing around with writing basic code. This really got him interested in how video games and systems worked behind the scenes and led to his interest in programming. In high school, he took programming classes and found he was actually good at it and decided to pursue programming in college. Once he was hired at Thought Bot, his developing skills really took off and he has been there for almost five years now.

This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Ben Orenstein. Ben recently just got a new job refactoring Rails apps, runs a podcast, called The Art of Product, and just finished up The Code Quality Challenge. He first got into programming when he was a Senior in high school and took a computing class at the local college where they taught him C, and he really fell in love with programming. He is really proud of his contribution to the education side of the programming world and enjoys being able to teach really complicated concepts.

This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Mike Gehard. Mike currently works for Pivotal working in the Platform Acceleration Lab. He first got into programming when he was 10 working with his Commodore 64, but really stepped up his interest after he graduated with his Bachelor’s in Chemical Engineering and started working at a petrochemical refining research company, where it was very computer based. They discuss how he found his way to Ruby and how easy it is to create things with it, as well as the things that he has contributed to the Ruby community that he is proud of.

This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Mikel Lindsaar. Mikel started a Ruby on Rails consultancy in 2010 and is most well known for being the original author of Mail gem. He first got into programming working as a volunteer for a church where he built a Rails parishioner management system. This experience led him to create the Mail gem, which has really made him well-known in the community. He always like the idea of being able to control and create something, and this has definitely influenced his programming career.

This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Aurynn Shaw. Aurynn got into programming when she was helping clients at a contracting company deploy early web things using Perl. Programming really clicked for her when she was fascinated by how programs really work when she created her own language. Currently, she works with Python for Lambdas and is doing a lot of client work. This includes building deployment pipelines and helping them ask information security questions. She also discusses programming culture and her views on it.

This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Corey Haines. Corey first got into programming because when his father shifted over into programming in the late 70’s, that meant that there was always a computer in the house when he was growing up. He grew up playing games on his father’s computer, and from there gained interest in code and programming. He talks about his love for Ruby and Rails as well as his proudest contributions to the Ruby community, such as the different communities of learning that he has impacted over the years.

This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Jeremy Evans. Jeremy has been programming Ruby since 2004, and is best known for working on Roda and Sequel. He talks about his journey into programming, starting when he was in college and took an introduction to programming class that focused on C++, which he found interesting and then took the next courses in the series. This was just the beginning for his programming journey, though. Jeremy continues to talk about his present and future endeavors and how he is adding value to the Ruby community.

This week on My Ruby Story, Charles speaks with Cameron Dutro. Cameron is a return guest from Ruby Rogues. Currently, Cameron works at Lumosity, a company that creates brain games & brain training application for web and mobile. Cameron mention working on the platform team working with internationalization.

harles Max Wood Guest: Sudhindra Rao This week on My Ruby Story, Charles speaks with Sudhindra Rao, Sudhindra has been a Ruby developer for over 10 years. Sudhindra talks about working on media platforms, e-commerce type sights, campaign platforms, and healthcare applications. Sudhindra talks about working in Ruby still but has moved into many platforms and technologies.