Videos
Rails::HTML5: the strange and remarkable three-year journey
Slides Rails World 2023 (2023-10)An accessible deep dive into the evolution of Rails to include HTML5-compliant sanitization,
which provides better security for Rails applications.
Put that test down! You don't know where it's been.
Slides RubyConf 2021 (2021-12)One afternoon in early 2021, a 14-year-old test in Rails started failing. Nobody understood
why. This 12 minute video will amuse and/or annoy you with a mystery that spans decades and tech
stacks.
Building Native Extensions (Part 2)
Slides RubyConf 2021 (2021-12)Part two, a bit broader look at C extensions in Ruby, including an explanation of why Nokogiri
chose to start precompiling native packages.
Building Native Extensions (Part 1)
Slides Ruby Kaigi 2021 (2021-09)A deep look at the techniques and toolchain used to ship native (precompiled) versions of
Nokogiri and other rubygems with C extensions.
Nokogiri: History, Present, and Future
Slides GoGaRuCo 2013 (2013-09)The history of a successful OSS project, along with humorous stories and lessons learned. This
talk, given multiple times, is presented here in its final version.
Podcasts
HTML parsing & sanitization and SQLite
Remote Ruby (2024-08)In this podcast episode I talk with Chris Oliver and Andrew Mason about Loofah and
the Rails HTML sanitizer, SQLite support in Ruby, how I got started in Ruby, and
a bit about management vs leadership.
Ruby Shield, Ruby Central, and Shopify (with Evan Phoenix)
Programming Throwdown (2022-11)Evan Phoenix and I were interviewed by Patrick Wheeler and Jason Gauci about our personal
journies in Ruby, how we learn, and how we came to work together on Ruby Shield, a security
partnership between Shopify and Ruby Central.
Cloud Foundry Overview
Software Engineering Daily (2018-03)In this interview I talk about Cloud Foundry, Pivotal, and a potpourri of other topics.
Presentations
Embracing Change as an Organization
How a 500-person organization can stay agile and embrace change. Presented at Code Climate Summit. (2019-05)
Why you're in the right place at the right time
A talk given to CUNY students and recent grads about the importance of community in shaping a career. (2015-05)
Agile Inceptions 101
An internal "Core Practice" talk given at Pivotal Labs. (2014-10)
enterprise-fu, or, How To Succeed in Business Like A Ninja Samurai
Subversive lessons from two decades spent in enterprisey companies. Presented at Asbury Agile. (2013-10)
Stupid XML Tricks
Introduction to OSS projects Loofah, Lorax and McBean to modify, compare and transform HTML and
XML documents. Presented at NYC.rb.
(2010-03)