The New Ruby Inside: I’ve Gone All Daring Fireball On You

By Peter Cooper

Tonight, Ruby Inside has changed for the better. If you're reading on the Web, it will be immediately apparent, but if you're reading via the feed, check out RubyInside.com. Ruby Inside is no longer a magazine-style blog - it's a Daring Fireball-style tumblelog.

Why?

If you've been following Ruby Inside for a year or more, you might have noticed a severe slowdown in posts here over the last several months. This was down to a combination of being busy working on my startup, coder.io, and, frankly, being a bit burnt out writing posts every day for Ruby Inside. Posts have gradually slowed down to between 1 and 3 each week.

When I looked into why people read Ruby Inside, it turned out it wasn't to read a Ruby "magazine" or long, in-depth articles. Instead, people said they trusted my "nose" for good Ruby news and wanted me to share all the latest cool Ruby stuff I've found, along with a little insight.

A long-time fan of tumblelogs as a reader, I recently realized I could both increase the velocity of Ruby Inside posts, point to more interesting stuff, and generally improve the quality of the site by turning it into a tumblelog. Instead of having to write a 300/400 word summary of every thing I wanted to post about, a tumblelog gives me the ability to just "throw out" a link with a few lines of commentary. John Gruber of Daring Fireball does the same with Apple related news, and he has millions of readers each month!

So, Ruby Inside is now a tumblelog. There will be occasional longer posts, but most posts will be links, quotes, and short bits of insight on all of the latest stuff going on in the Ruby world. If I think most Ruby developers would benefit from knowing something, it'll go straight on here, rather than sit in my To Do pile for weeks. I hope to pick up the posting level from once or twice each week to a few times each day.

What?

The latest changes affect all readers. If you're reading Ruby Inside via the feed, you'll continue to get posts as usual, but any "link" posts will link directly to the third party site and not to the Ruby Inside post - making your life easier.

If you read Ruby Inside primarily on the Web, you have a whole new format to get used to. Since tumblelogs are very common now, though, I imagine you'll consider it an improvement. Full post contents can now be read on the front page, so you don't need to keep clicking around. Less bullshit, higher quality, etc. You will also note there's a new events listing on the left hand side of every page - it's powered by Keavy McMinn's RubyThere Ruby events listing site.

People using iPads should also enjoy the changes. The new design was tested on an iPad all the way through the process and it looks great on there!

So?

So, what do you think? I considered disabling comments on Ruby Inside in true tumblelog style, but.. I enjoy them too much and they're usually useful to read. Leave a comment on RubyInside.com against this post with your thoughts, suggestions, or otherwise, about the new design and direction I'm pointing Ruby Inside in.