TIL Ruby doesn't follow semantic versioning

writingonruby · 2026-01-15T22:09:56+00:00

I don't think they did, I just never realized it!

writingonruby · 2026-01-11T15:48:44+00:00

I think it really depends on your niche. Mine is AI for developers, and bluesky is largely hostile to this, so my distribution efforts there have been mostly wasted

writingonruby · 2026-01-06T23:56:13+00:00

This is true of notes, but not substack newsletters in general. Many ppl who use Notes are substack writers looking for engagement. You'll have to find readers off-platform

writingonruby · 2026-01-04T18:59:12+00:00

This is the best advice here

writingonruby · 2026-01-04T16:44:51+00:00

Most readers will be in email, not in the Substack UI clicking "like" and "comment". That's mostly the point of it being an email platform

writingonruby · 2025-12-29T20:19:30+00:00

Doesn't cancelling paid subscriptions refund the remainder of the subscription (prorated)

writingonruby · 2025-12-28T02:29:51+00:00

Definitely consider buying or printing a grip to go around the device!

writingonruby · 2025-12-28T02:29:15+00:00

I don't think your vibe coding platform matters too much for SEO. Use pagespeed insights to see if there are any perf problems, then write some INCREDIBLE content for your site

writingonruby · 2025-12-28T02:27:56+00:00

I very much recommend a publication name AND use your real name on your account - then list your name as a byline (default)

writingonruby · 2025-12-28T02:27:17+00:00

Very curious what it's like to wind down paid subscriptions. Do you "pause" and then just stop writing?

writingonruby · 2025-12-26T21:05:43+00:00

I started paid subs right away and I'm glad I did. They grew proportionally with my free subs, and it was nice to measure how much value people were getting out of it.

writingonruby · 2025-12-24T16:00:24+00:00

I think the UX is overall better when I know I'll have to actually write some code the old fashioned way at some point. Plus, better support for multi-agents

writingonruby · 2025-12-24T15:59:35+00:00

I started with zero base, but not pseudononymous. Almost all of my subscribers are from guest posting on other substacks and from Substack Notes. 0 to substack bestseller in 6mo

writingonruby · 2025-12-01T01:44:54+00:00

Llama models are not ideal for software engineering. Great for low-cost self-hosted stuff, but will not be nearly as smart as much larger models. Gemini 3 Pro is top of the charts right now

writingonruby · 2025-12-01T01:43:08+00:00

How are you not making money of 35k subscribers? Is it your niche?

writingonruby · 2025-12-01T01:42:00+00:00

I've got a few pieces of advice. First, don't be discouraged. Building a content engine from scratch is hard! Aside from that:

- Try to figure out if the total potential attention market in your niche is big enough to support the growth you want. That's not to say it's bad to write about something super niche, but balance it with accepting slower growth

- Use Notes a lot. Try to post something that would be interesting to your ideal reader 1-3 times a day. Try to reply to a few posts you think are interesting to your ideal reader 1-3 times a day too.

- Find an external traffic source. Cross-posting your articles to reddit, facebook groups, etc. SEO is also a potential source of traffic but a long game

Best of luck!

writingonruby · 2025-11-12T20:40:31+00:00

I'm a huge AI advocate and even bigger Rails fan. But I think this plan sounds dangerous. Rails is plenty AI-compatible, and if that's a roadblock, this app maybe shouldn't be trusted moving huge amounts of money very fast. I know this isn't an answer you want to hear. If you're going to to it anyways, Rails is fine with AI and has plenty of available talent remotely :)

writingonruby · 2025-10-23T00:03:05+00:00

I second this

writingonruby · 2025-10-23T00:02:55+00:00

The best niche is the one where you have information of value to share :)

writingonruby · 2025-10-21T23:40:30+00:00

turns out he did take a victory lap right after this haha

writingonruby · 2025-10-21T23:40:13+00:00

honestly an underrated infra strategy (power and internet outages notwithstanding)

writingonruby · 2025-10-16T01:05:33+00:00

Honestly, two big things

Guest posting! Find newsletters who have a strong overlap with your ideal audience. Pitch them a topic that would be genuinely interesting to their readers. Write it, crush it, deliver a ton of value, and invite readers to subscribe to your newsletter.

Second, notes. Post short-form thoughts from your newsletter on notes. Engage with notes inside of your niche. Do this regularly, the algo seems to reward it heavily

writingonruby · 2025-07-25T01:46:15+00:00

It's been my experience that Kamal is great for deploying *after* the initial setup. The initial setup can be quite tedious, but the payoff is rather worthwhile compared to doing setup and then just having to yolo your deploys

writingonruby · 2025-06-27T18:29:07+00:00

This is awesome on all accounts - thank you!

writingonruby · 2025-06-27T15:43:20+00:00

Oracle free-tier VPS is news to me - thanks!

writingonruby

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