Verified Ruby-Doc.org author
Ruby developer, writer, and creator of Ruby-Doc.org
James Britt created Ruby-Doc.org in 2002 as a central home for Ruby documentation and learning resources. After serving as its long-term maintainer, he now writes practical Ruby tutorials and code examples for Ruby-Doc Learn.
About James Britt
James is an artist, writer, musician, technologist and Ruby developer based in Scottsdale, Arizona. He operates Neurogami, which he founded in 2001 for software, art and interactive technology projects.
His Ruby work spans documentation, teaching, JRuby desktop development and open-source projects. For Ruby-Doc Learn, his focus is useful, runnable examples that explain not only what a piece of Ruby does, but when a developer would use it.
- Ruby programming
- Ruby documentation
- JRuby development
- Developer education
Ruby community work
James's public Ruby record extends beyond maintaining Ruby-Doc.org. Independent sources document his technical writing, conference talks, JRuby open-source work and published Ruby packages.
Technical writing
Ruby-lang.org highlighted his 2004 Linux Journal article on manipulating OpenOffice.org documents with Ruby.
Conference speaking
RubyEvents records his MountainWest RubyConf talks “Black-boxing with Ruby” (2007) and “Hubris: The Ruby/Haskell Bridge” (2010).
JRuby and open source
InfoQ interviewed James about Monkeybars, a JRuby MVC framework, and the Rawr packaging tool.
Published Ruby packages
RubyGems lists James as an author of qft and Neurogami-wiiremotejruby.
These sources support James's documented work in Ruby publishing, conference speaking and open-source development. They do not identify him as a Ruby core committer.
Why this profile is verified
Ruby-Doc.org has verified James's identity and current author role. The site's history and his professional background are independently supported by:
- James Britt's original Ruby-Talk announcement of Ruby-Doc.org on 10 November 2002.
- O'Reilly's James Britt author biography, which records his Ruby community, writing and Ruby-Doc.org work.
- James Britt's official personal profile and Neurogami profile.
Identity and role verified by Ruby-Doc.org. Last verified 2 September 2026.
Articles by James Britt
The Rails App Was Running, But It Wasn’t Working
A Rails app can look healthy while background work has stopped. James Britt explains how health checks, job heartbeats and status pages reveal the failure.
Ruby vs Python: Key Differences and Which One Should You Choose?
A practical Ruby vs Python comparison covering syntax, web frameworks, automation, data work, performance, learning, and career paths.
Ruby Code Examples: 20 Practical Snippets for Beginners
Learn Ruby through 20 practical code examples covering strings, arrays, hashes, methods, classes, files, JSON, regex, and more.
Ruby on Rails and PyTorch: Building Reliable AI Features
A practical guide for Ruby teams adding PyTorch predictions to Rails: define the API contract, handle failures, measure the feature and hire for integration skills.
Translating Data Science Logic into Web Apps: A Developer’s Guide
Occasionally a Rails application needs to calculate something from the data in its database. This could be ranking products, summarizing sensor readings or forecasting potential sales from prior purchases. While Python is well-established in the field of data science, Ruby teams face a very practical decision – can the current application manage this requirement, or […]
Chatbot Development in Ruby: Exploring Key Classes
A customer asks “Where is my order?” in a Rails application. The chat window looks simple, but the application still has work to do: identify the customer, find an order they are allowed to see, and provide a useful answer if the delivery service is down. Ruby chatbot development involves designing an application. A few […]