Mike Rispoli sits down with Scott Werner, CEO of Sublayer and creator of the Works on My Machine newsletter. Scott runs Artificial Ruby, a meetup in NYC for engineers building with Ruby and AI.
Scott graduated in 2008 into the financial crisis. Graded standardized tests. Bartended. Did ATM call center support. Found Ruby and never looked back.
His philosophy: flexibility matters. If an idea takes two weeks to try, you won't try as many bad ideas as if it takes 20 minutes. Good ideas start looking like bad ideas. Ruby lets you experiment fast.
Mike switched back to Ruby because TypeScript was chewing up context with type errors. The language is concise. Readable. Perfect for AI.
Scott's latest project: a sci-fi newsletter about future jobs. "Warranty Void if Regenerated" explores software mechanics. The premise: 10 years from now, people vibe code their software. Things break. You need someone who thinks in systems to fix it.
Topics covered:
- TypeScript vs Ruby for AI development
- Suburbanization of code and cottage industry software
- Rails as the framework of IPOs
- Software mechanics as future job
- Volume advantage in agentic coding
- Reading classics with LLMs
- Gatekeepers are gone
- 37signals Once philosophy
If you're building with Ruby, training teams on AI, or thinking about the future of software, this is for you.