---
title: RubyTalk
kind: open-source
role: Solo build
years: '2013'
status: archived
summary: >-
  A Smalltalk-inspired experiment in Ruby: live object inspection,
  message-passing exploration, an environment to think in rather than a tool to
  type into.
tags:
  - ruby
  - smalltalk
  - open-source
  - historical
order: 2
---

**The job:** Treat a running Ruby program as a workspace to think in, not just code to execute.

A small open-source experiment from 2013, inspired by Alan Kay's Smalltalk and the long-standing idea that the computer should be a medium for thinking, not just a place to run programs. RubyTalk let you poke at live Ruby objects, inspect them, send them messages, and treat the running program as the workspace. A love letter to Engelbart and Kay more than a serious tool. The highest-leverage AI work still happens at that same seam (the handoff between human and machine), which is part of why I spend so much time on [Work Context Protocol](/portfolio/work-context-protocol) now.