Thoughtbot iconThoughtbotOct 2, 2026 ~1 min source read

NWRUG's (Manchester, UK) October 2026 meeting — It's time to bin your VCR

The next North West Ruby User Group in Manchester, UK is in a fortnight on 15 October at Colony, One Silk Street. Rob Whittaker will take us through one of his hot-takes: VCR does more damage than good, and there are imperfectly better ways to stub your external requests.

Share this story

Send the public story page.

Useful takeaways from this story.

The next North West Ruby User Group in Manchester, UK is in a fortnight on 15 October at Colony, One Silk Street.

Rob Whittaker will take us through one of his hot-takes: VCR does more damage than good, and there are imperfectly better ways to stub your external requests.

He has over two decades of professional web development experience and has worked with Ruby and Rails since 2012.

Building the complete brief

The page is ready to read now. The fuller skim-friendly version will appear here automatically.

The useful part

The next North West Ruby User Group in Manchester, UK is in a fortnight on 15 October at Colony, One Silk Street. Rob Whittaker will take us through one of his hot-takes: VCR does more damage than good, and there are imperfectly better ways to stub your external requests. He has over two decades of professional web development experience and has worked with Ruby and Rails since 2012.

Details worth keeping

Originally appeared on Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots. Rob Whittaker is Director of Software Development at thoughtbot. Afterwards we'll retire to The Crown & Kettle for a drink.

Keep reading in the app

Open the app view to save this story, compare related coverage, and continue from the same source.

Open in app