---
title: "Year in Review 2022: Tenderlove's Ruby and Rails Reflections and Predictions"
description: "Aaron Patterson’s 2022 review surveys developments in Ruby and Rails, pairing runtime performance work with tools intended to improve developer productivity. YJIT’s compiler was rewritten in Rust, enabling ARM and Apple Silicon support while producing faster machine code; Variable Width Allocation adjusts object slot sizes to keep instance variables embedded and improve data locality. Ruby 3.2’s Object Shapes use property order as a class-independent inline-cache key, while Ruby LSP adds editor services and Error Highlight adds column-level diagnostics that now appear on Rails error pages. Patterson predicts—more accurately, hopes—that languages, frameworks, and development environments will become more interconnected, providing better suggestions, context, and assistance so developers can spend less time coding and more time solving problems."
---

# Year in Review 2022: Tenderlove's Ruby and Rails Reflections and Predictions

[Shopify](https://yomu.fyi/company/shopify) · 2023-10-18 · Dec 22, 2022

**Type:** Explainer

## Summary

Aaron Patterson’s 2022 review surveys developments in Ruby and Rails, pairing runtime performance work with tools intended to improve developer productivity. YJIT’s compiler was rewritten in Rust, enabling ARM and Apple Silicon support while producing faster machine code; Variable Width Allocation adjusts object slot sizes to keep instance variables embedded and improve data locality. Ruby 3.2’s Object Shapes use property order as a class-independent inline-cache key, while Ruby LSP adds editor services and Error Highlight adds column-level diagnostics that now appear on Rails error pages. Patterson predicts—more accurately, hopes—that languages, frameworks, and development environments will become more interconnected, providing better suggestions, context, and assistance so developers can spend less time coding and more time solving problems.

## Context

The review reflects on notable Ruby and Rails developments at the end of 2022 and uses them to consider what may come next. It emphasizes a broader shift toward programmer ergonomics, including better error messages, editor integration, and documentation, which Patterson describes as increasingly essential.

## Approach / What changed

The review presents selected projects and changes across the Ruby ecosystem: YJIT’s Rust rewrite and ARM support, Variable Width Allocation, Object Shapes, Ruby LSP, and Error Highlight’s integration with Rails error pages. It concludes with a prediction that languages, frameworks, and development environments will become more interconnected.

## Takeaways

- YJIT’s Rust rewrite made the compiler more maintainable, generated faster machine code, and enabled execution on ARM machines, including Apple Silicon computers.
- Variable Width Allocation lets Ruby learn the required object slot width and allocate later instances accordingly, keeping more instance-variable references inside the object and improving data locality.
- Object Shapes provide a class-independent inline-cache key based on instance-variable properties and their order, allowing objects from different classes to share cache benefits.

**Tags:** [Developer Experience](https://yomu.fyi/topic/developer-experience), [Performance](https://yomu.fyi/topic/performance), [Rust](https://yomu.fyi/topic/rust)

- Source: [Shopify](https://shopify.engineering/ruby-rails-year-in-review-2022)
- Source URL: https://shopify.engineering/ruby-rails-year-in-review-2022
- Ingested by Yomu: 2026-08-30T13:36:50.309Z

[Read original post](https://shopify.engineering/ruby-rails-year-in-review-2022)