Joel “this is bs” Drapper

Full-stack #Ruby / #Rails / #TypeScript / #CSS engineer, CEO of #HTMX, formerly at Clearscope and Shopify — author and maintainer of the gems #Phlex, Morphlex, Literal, Quickdraw — cohost the Rooftop Ruby Podcast (npub149m…egl0) podcast.

blog: https://joel.drapper.me
github: https://github.com/joeldrapper/
email: [email protected]
bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/joel.drapper.me

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Last Notes

2026-03-16 21:08:33 GMT

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just says post pending.

2025-10-20 08:37:01 GMT

If the Rails Foundation tried to take Rails from its maintainers, I would stand up for the maintainers, despite my political differences.
Rails is not owned by the Rails Foundation in the same way RubyGems projects were not owned by Ruby Central.
And neither are legitimately owned by Ruby Core.

2025-10-09 00:40:37 GMT

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but they didn’t say anything new in that post, or answer any of the issues that have been raised.

2025-10-02 17:07:27 GMT

Ruby Central took what wasn’t theirs to take, and they must immediately hadn’t it back.
We can talk later about the lying and gaslighting that followed. But what they must do right now is hand back the GitHub organisation and open source packages to the maintainers.

2025-09-29 16:26:47 GMT

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what’s your source for this? I don’t have a very solid connection.

2025-09-23 23:23:38 GMT

This aged well.
https://cdn.masto.host/rubysocial/media_attachments/files/115/256/181/592/367/910/original/0a0c0536eeb038dd.png

2025-09-23 20:31:07 GMT

I just read the signed 13 page merger document between Ruby Central and Ruby Together.
No where does it specify that ownership of the RubyGems source code is being transferred to Ruby Central.
Ruby Together never owned it in the first place.
Ruby Central are lying.

2025-09-23 15:39:14 GMT

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I don’t know much about that, but I do know that the RubyGems.org Service could run in maintenance mode for quite a small budget. All the infrastructure, bandwidth is covered.

2025-09-23 15:09:05 GMT

After listening to about a dozen first-hand accounts, I’ve published what I know so far about the RubyGems takeover.
https://joel.drapper.me/p/rubygems-takeover/

2025-07-18 17:07:37 GMT

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we’re not going to lose our humanity, because no one wants that.
Interaction with other humans is in our nature. I would be happy to make a bet right now that in 20 years time we will still be following other humans online via social media, chat rooms, video channels, podcasts and blogs.

2025-07-18 16:53:26 GMT

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my perspective is that this has always been what made the web great. It’s why I love RSS and structured data schemas (previously known as micro formats). The fact that anyone can build a tool that loads content from the web is the magic of the web.
You can’d do that with desktop apps.

2025-07-18 16:47:32 GMT

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On your website, for example, the alt text associated with the main photograph on this page is “Photo associated with the resource". https://jaredwhite.com/pictures/20250621/the-biggest-mountain-in-pnw
https://cdn.masto.host/rubysocial/media_attachments/files/114/875/251/482/951/683/original/408c6a9d34f615fc.png

2025-07-18 16:42:00 GMT

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for example, adding alt text to images is a way to help make images accessible to people who can’t see them. But it’s not perfect and it’s not even close to the accessibility provided by being able to have an LLM describe an image and even have a conversation about specific aspects of the image. We shouldn’t be blocking these tools in my opinion. They are the best thing to happen to digital accessibility ever.

2025-07-18 16:39:08 GMT

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if your intention is to block browsers that assist users with LLMs, that is an intention to block users who need and benefit from assistance.
Accessible HTML is just a means to an end. The real goal is to help people access content they otherwise might not be able to access.

2025-07-18 16:21:33 GMT

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this is anti accessibility. LLMs are the biggest advance in accessibility technology in decades and you’re going to block it?

2025-07-10 17:17:05 GMT

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for this I used the agent mode in Zed with the “Ask” profile, which means it can’t edit files, but it can search files, write regexes to find patterns, read specific directory structures, look up documentation, etc.
And then it writes a summary with verbatim inserts of line ranges of files it found.

2025-07-10 17:11:27 GMT

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using LLMs is a very effective way to navigate a codebase you’re not familiar with though. I’ve used LLMs to find key files in incredibly large codebases that I have no intention of becoming familiar with but that I need to modify or integrate with in specific ways.

2025-07-03 22:37:04 GMT

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who’s thinking of quitting? It’s the most exciting time to be a programmer. We have such incredible tools now.

2025-04-30 15:23:38 GMT

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I don’t understand why the Supreme Court doesn’t appoint a marshal then.

2025-04-30 14:42:01 GMT

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the problem is America is an elective monarchy, not a democracy. We only have pretend monarchs in the UK.
And the prime minister isn’t a king but a servant and they have to obey the law like anyone else.

2025-01-28 09:49:47 GMT

I’m available for hire.
I’m an experienced Ruby, TypeScript and CSS engineer looking for a new full-time position.
I can help you with performance, concurrency, testing, architecture and API design problems on tooling or product teams.
I’d really appreciate any personal introductions. My email address is in my bio.

2024-08-02 01:20:58 GMT

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we miss you.