Dave Copeland :ruby:

Author of BrutRB, our last, best hope for Rubykind. Former CTO @ Mood Health. Former Stitch Fix, LivingSocial. Posts about Ruby, Tech, Maybe Cats

Website: https://naildrivin5.com
Interests: 🤿🍸💻🎸😻
My Ruby Web Framework: https://brutrb.com
Pronouns: He/Him

Public Key

npub170ujqrt6s9722d2z70cvswen4d9xn9hs7hnln8rh3q2wrt3c00qqc9esdj

NIP-05 Address

[email protected]

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs087fqp4agzl99x4p08uxg8ve6kjnfjmc0telen3mcs98p4cu8hsqprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0d4hhxarj9ecxjmntqyt8wumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnswf5k6ctv9ehx2aqpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wd68ytnwv46q83cn0y

Publishing to

relay.momostr.pink

relay.primal.net

relay.nostr.net

Author Public Key

npub170ujqrt6s9722d2z70cvswen4d9xn9hs7hnln8rh3q2wrt3c00qqc9esdj

Show more details

Last Notes

2026-08-25 13:32:50 UTC

RE: https://indieweb.social/@brentsimmons/117152764013359053
A quote post from @npub15m6…mp9u sparked me to re-evaluate this post, and I agree. It's a reductive take that isn't useful or clarifying.
The core thesis is that we can't live our lives free of compromise. But the DEGREE to which each of us must compromise differs. Someone with more power than someone else has the ability to use that power to make different choices. If they don't, they DO deserve criticism.
#note1k34…yz8t

2026-07-12 14:55:44 UTC

Everything you need to know about how productive LLM-based coding agents make you is that the creators of the two biggest have shipped cross platform Electron turds instead of platform native apps.

2026-04-17 15:42:42 UTC

What a wild butterfly effect: Ruby Central invites DHH to RailsConf and now:
* Almost out of money
* Bad feelings/animosity with at least some of the major Ruby open source contributors
* ED fired
* board almost totally turned over
* primary function (rubygems.org maintenance) now being hopefully outsourced to volunteers
* some AI bullshit
All RC had to do was simply NOT platform him. No big statement, no virtue signaling, nothing. All they had to do was have RailsConf.

2026-04-09 13:58:12 UTC

I'm less concerned with people like Ruby Central and Pragmatic Engineer de-platforming David Rails - I just want them to simply NOT platform him. Imagine how much heartache RC could've saved themselves by simply not having him at Rails Conf. He wasn't asking to be there, and they didn't have to "take a stand" - just simply have the conference. But they didn't do the simple thing and look at the fallout. For what benefit? None. We understand his ideas. We don't need them amplified.

2026-03-11 15:33:46 UTC

I guess if my heat stops working next winter I can fire up Discord on Linux. It doesn't let you chat in any Discord servers, but it runs the fans at full blast and requires kill -9 to stop. Cool.

2026-03-02 15:40:32 UTC

Apropos of my "Death of a Software Craftsman" post, legendary woodworker Paul Sellers talks about the near-elimination of hand-tool woodworking during the rise of power tools, plus an extended almost rant about how a small set of simple, reliable tools can meet just about any need (based on his 4-5 decades of building furniture)
I feel this when I e.g. try using an LSP, don't get it, and go back to just using vim as I have for years, being perfectly productive.
https://paulsellers.com/2026/03/democratising-handwork-in-wood

2026-02-23 20:22:41 UTC

- reply

I have been a depressive haze for the last few months because of this. I'm not sure if writing this post helps, but I think it does. Though still not sure what this means for me personally.
Craft{er,sman,sperson} - I don't love the term, but "maker" doesn't seem right to me, nor does "artisan", but maybe it's just "coder"?

2026-02-23 17:53:50 UTC

The Death of a Software Craftsman (it happens a lot 'round here)
https://naildrivin5.com/blog/2026/02/23/the-death-of-the-software-craftsman.html
AI Abstinence? All in on Agents? Or resign yourself to becoming a niche craftsperson?

2026-02-12 15:42:45 UTC

- reply

I've found installing anything on Linux super fraught. I had to install Firefox via their PPA repo to get the FirefoxPWA thing working (4th type of install I tried), so I wonder if installing Vivaldi via Flatpak is the cause? It's not Vivaldi's fault, but this is one of the many things related to "PWAs don't really work on Linux".

2026-02-12 14:36:15 UTC

- reply

It seems to do what Chrom{e,ium} does which is fold all PWAs under the Vivaldi icon and not as separate apps. There's something Chromium does that doesn't jive with Wayland only Gnome on latest Ubuntu. Unlike chromium, Vivaldi also doesn't use the correct icon in the app launcher.
I'm using basically whatever Linux happens when you install stock Ubuntu. FirefoxPWA works well, but is very fussy to setup and manage. :(

2026-02-11 23:50:10 UTC

Just spent the last two days trying again to get Linux usable. I have made a lot more progress. Some stuff I will have to live with being not great, but the key this time was to only make changes to solve a specific problem and not get distracted with customizing things I don't care about. Tried to make everything command-line based so I don't have to write down how to use a linux GUI.
It's a SAD state of affairs that the best PWA support is still on macOS.

2026-02-10 21:33:20 UTC

Not enough to make bad software everyone hates. Not enough to buy Heroku, let it wither, and then let it die. This shitbird has to make jokes about the gestapo coming for his employees.
https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-ceo-ice-jokes-employee-event-2026-2

2025-12-11 15:14:36 UTC

One of my least favorite Ruby cultural norms is being so obsessive about users not having to learn how to configure a gem that the gem, just on being required by Bundler, sets up a lot of default configuration.
Currently: honeybadger sets up very slow at_exit hooks if you don't configure it not to

2025-12-10 16:08:16 UTC

Now's a great time to delete your facebook account. You can live life without it.
I'm still on Instagram, but if they ask for this, it's getting deleted.
https://mastodon.social/@anolandria/115692446267126873

2025-12-03 21:00:31 UTC

Christmas came early. Now he can go work somewhere that is just as user-hostile as he is.
Assuming he wasn’t fired, imagine being in charge of design at the only big company that claims to value design and leaving for fucking Facebook. Good riddance. https://mastodon.macstories.net/@viticci/115657345465761145

2025-11-19 15:17:18 UTC

If I'm understanding this Cloudflare thing right, it looks like the smug use† of monads took down the entire internet?
†is there any other kind?

2025-09-22 18:55:28 UTC

- reply

I understand why Rails Core members tolerate David Rails. I do not interpret this tolerance as agreement. They have their own lives to manage and their jobs, and connection to him, is just one part of that. They know better how to manage their lives than I do.
That said, if you don't have to tolerate David Rails, there's no particular reason to. There's plenty of ways to build a web app in Ruby or any other language. Now is a great time to at least consider trying something else.

2025-09-22 18:53:17 UTC

This is not a useful framing, but I understand it. The reality is that we all tolerate things in our lives, in the literal sense of “put up with something or somebody unpleasant”. Tolerance does not mean agreement.
It doesn't track that refusal to tolerate X requires that you also refuse to tolerate Y. Everyone has a different level of tolerance for each unpleasant thing in their lives. It's OK to refuse to tolerate something others can tolerate and vice versa.
https://ruby.social/@jorgealvarez/115249146312849230

2025-09-21 23:40:53 UTC

So fa Liquid Glass seems good. It does something to save web page icons which I can’t find documented.
I also made a two changes unrelated that I think will help my mental and physical sanity:
- fake home button instead of swipe up (thumb is killing me)
- no more always on screen or wake on raise (constant activations, music skips, photos on, etc due to Apple Magic)

2025-09-19 14:15:00 UTC

Wtf?
https://pup-e.com/goodbye-rubygems.pdf
https://andre.arko.net/2025/09/19/goodbye-rubygems/
https://cdn.masto.host/rubysocial/media_attachments/files/115/231/378/311/678/341/original/1d6fb9c545a6a378.png

2025-08-31 15:48:20 UTC

Forgot “No Case” which is S-Tier
https://mastodon.social/@BasicAppleGuy/115124000360377371

2025-07-23 15:04:01 UTC

Build a Blog in 15-ish minutes with Brut!
https://video.hardlimit.com/w/ae7EMhwjDq9kSH5dqQ9swV
Source code for those that don't want to watch a video: https://github.com/thirdtank/blog-demo

2025-07-09 13:34:33 UTC

I found something more controversial than disliking HAML: The Hippocratic License.
Though to my amazement, some of the, shall we say "less sophisticated comments" on the orange site where actually flagged and downvoted!

2025-07-08 17:51:18 UTC

I'm not at #RailsConf, but I did just now release a new web framework I've been working on: BrutRB:
https://brutrb.com
Read about it on my blog, below. It's not like Rails at all. I had fun working on it, will keep working on it, and hope you like it!
https://naildrivin5.com/blog/2025/07/08/brut-a-new-web-framework-for-ruby.html

2025-07-03 15:21:52 UTC

I like that CSS is evolving. But, it would be nice if new features had less of this random flexibility. https://front-end.social/@css/114789914481764351

2025-06-16 17:53:50 UTC

- reply

Did you…click the link?
https://cdn.masto.host/rubysocial/media_attachments/files/114/694/319/421/115/164/original/a1e7179bd91ed6ac.png

2025-06-16 17:50:18 UTC

- reply

Pease do read the post if you want to understand the problem I'm solving. It's 100% NOT "learn neovim” or "setup a base config for Neovim”.
It is: how to use neovim with an LSP when using a docker-based dev environment. If, after reading the post, you still find it overcomplicated and have a better solution, I'm all ears - it WAS complicated getting it working!

2025-06-16 16:43:29 UTC

- reply

I think this (and kickstarter) are probably great if you are learning vim and don't want to build up a config and plugins. But I've done that already - these things are super heavyweight for my needs.

2025-06-16 16:41:10 UTC

- reply

The key feature I got working was running vim on my computer connected to an LSP running inside a container. kickstarter doesn’t seem to do that. Although, this cannot be the docs you are referring to? https://github.com/nvim-lua/kickstart.nvim/blob/3338d3920620861f8313a2745fd5d2be39f39534/doc/kickstart.txt
the README has nothing - I looked at the script itself - it's 1000+ lines! I think it was easier to learn how lsp-config, at least for me

2025-06-16 15:02:33 UTC

- reply

do they work with containers? This is why I ended up learning how it works. Kickstart doesn’t seem to have online docs so I can’t check but it seems to want to give you a full com config. I’m good on my vim setup - just needed LSP to work.

2025-06-12 13:31:08 UTC

I got Ruby/CSS/JavaScript LSPs working with #NeoVim and so can you:
https://naildrivin5.com/blog/2025/06/12/neovim-and-lsp-servers-working-with-docker-based-development.html

2025-05-28 16:15:21 UTC

I can’t really see the benefit to doing this, but lots of downsides. It can be true the DHH invented Rails, did a great job at it, and is still a white supremacist not worth our time anymore. https://ruby.social/@rubycentral/114585914969796428

2025-01-26 15:05:58 UTC

As I've mentioned before, I'm in this tech leadership club/slack and it's been almost entirely AI for the last year or so. A true believer posted in the AI channel this timeline whereby most average-or-below knowledge workers will be replaced with AI in the next two years…

2024-12-13 13:23:53 UTC

Mozi seems like a solution to a problem only had by wealthy people who travel and view themselves as a character in a Malcom Gladwell book.
Why on earth would anyone upload their contacts to a VC-funded startup is beyond me.
https://ev.medium.com/making-social-social-again-0126fa5c6ce8

2024-11-26 15:30:54 UTC

- reply

Yeah, the issue is if I want to test by custom elements it's that or I create a test framework in the browser. Which I did try to do! It sucked. I'm wondering if it sucks less than JSDOM tho.

2024-11-26 14:56:45 UTC

Continuing adventures in test #WebComponents it's just such a shitshow. jsdom doesn't support fetch, so stuff like MSW requires using a polyfill. It just gets farther away from testing these elements in the environment where they are used.

2024-11-19 21:14:18 UTC

I have an irrational hatred of frozen_string_literal: true so much that I delete it from every file I find it in. My recalcitrance is about to pay off in Ruby 3.4!

2024-10-10 18:38:46 UTC

Simplest explanation and example I could come up with to demonstrate why you should always use #Postgres' TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE:
https://naildrivin5.com/blog/2024/10/10/a-simple-explanation-of-postgres-timestamp-with-time-zone.html

2024-08-26 15:42:29 UTC

Using External IDs in addition to primary keys (this was a clarification of a discussioin with @npub1rxq…6zwy on Lobsters about his "cool_id” library, which looks…cool :)
https://naildrivin5.com/blog/2024/08/26/create-public-facing-unique-keys-alongside-your-primary-keys.html
https://cdn.masto.host/rubysocial/media_attachments/files/113/029/083/621/265/688/original/d2162b918e8fd618.png

2024-06-10 17:18:32 UTC

- reply

This control center thing is neat, but there is just so much swiping to do stuff that results in being completely lost as how you got where.
I'm REALLY glad I've moved my parents to flip phones. This would be a nightmare.
#WWDC

2024-06-10 17:17:03 UTC

- reply

I hope that IRL Craig is a cool guy - he comes off like that and I'd hate if it was really a jerk.
His outfit is on brand with rich older guy that is coolish and kinda dorky.
I will probably style with color and live my green terminal dreams on the phone lol
#WWDC

2024-06-10 17:13:03 UTC

- reply

"Vimeo App" is strong mom energy: “we have YouTube at home”
#WWDC

2024-06-10 17:12:27 UTC

- reply

I feel like Apple wants us to do work inside the Vision Pro and this is almost the same fantasy that Meta has with thinking we will do work inside the "metaverse”. It's tiring enough to just have headphones on all day. I don't see this happening.
Also LOL @ "powerful brand stories”. GTFO
#WWDC

2024-06-10 17:09:33 UTC

- reply

Missed this guy's name. Dig his sneakers. Much better than Tim’s.
Haley Allen finally breaks out of the dull dude getup. Also, looks like people are getting last names this year!
Anyway, fake magical 3d photos doesn't seem that great TBH. Vibes of "Apple Music is playing the wrong version of my favorite song”
#WWDC

2024-06-10 17:07:21 UTC

- reply

Vision Pro updates should be content. FFS put a camera on someone scuba diving or skydiving or whatever. It cannot be that hard to make compelling content.
Hell, remaster Stargate SG-1 with 3d wormhole shots and that's it. Gold.
#WWDC

2024-06-10 17:05:41 UTC

- reply

I didn't think Silo was being renewed, so that's nice.
I'm not seeing Foundation - wtf
#WWDC

2024-06-10 17:03:46 UTC

#WWDC live stream thoughts coming. Feel free to mute me.
Tim is out in black shirt and jeans that do not have enough contrast.
And we'll get Apple TV+ out of the way first. I don't watch much on that platform but I will say that they have no created a bunch of shitty star wars shows, so there is that.