Welcome to day 48 of the 49 Days of Ruby! 🎉

You are almost there! After tomorrow, you will have finished 49 days of Ruby adventure!

Today, we are going to take a step back from code and talk about community.

The thing that makes Ruby so special, beyond its syntax, its readability, its usefulness, is its community.

Ruby is surrounded by caring people across the globe. People from all different experience levels come together to learn and to share. Ruby is one of the friendliest language communities for new developers.

How do you get involved in the Ruby community?

While, this past year of 2020 and continuing into 2021, there has been a real challenge with meetups because of the global Coronavirus crisis, meetups are generally a great way to get connected.

In fact, many Ruby meetups continue to meet despite social distancing and lockdowns via the web. That means you could attend a meetup without needing to put on any shoes!

There are Ruby meetups worldwide. This list provides a good breakdown of meetups by region. Find one that is near you. If there are none near you, look at others, especially since many are meeting online nowadays.

In addition to meetups, there are all many annual Ruby conferences.

The biggest one is RubyConf, which happens in North America every year (during the pandemic, it happened online exclusively). There are also regional conferences in different parts of the world like Ruby Fuza in South Africa, Euruko in Europe, Ruby Kaigi in Japan and many others.

There is a lot of past conferences that could be a helpful place to start looking.

If you are new to Ruby, RubyConf runs a scholars program that is really worthwhile. The program will pair you with a mentor, someone who has been in the community for a bit. They will help you navigate the sessions, introduce you to people, and be your overall guide for the experience.

Your challenge for today is to explore the Ruby community, and find a way to get involved! See you tomorrow for our last day of the journey.

Come back tomorrow for the next installment of 49 Days of Ruby! You can join the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #49daysofruby.