An Open Letter to Chuck At Top End Devs

Please note that all opinions are that of the author.

NOTE: I wrote this back on November 30, 2025. Chuck at Top End Devs, one of the co hosts of the excellent podcast Ruby Rogues. He hasn’t responded so I’m posting it on my blog and calling him out for his endorsement of Charlie Kirk, a promoter of hate speech. Chuck and DHH are examples of the underlying fascism in the Ruby community and it is time to call it out and stop it.

Here’s what I wrote to Charles. I was originally asking him to be a co host on Ruby Rogues but the more I looked into it, the more his actions repulsed me.

Hi Charles,

I’m a long time Rails developer (18 years of Rails, 19 years of ruby) and I’m no one you’ve ever heard of; I’m just a guy who writes code. I’m not really a part of the community but I’d like to change that. And that’s why your comment about looking for a new host appealed to me.

I write quite a bit at https://new.fuzzyblog.io/ and I’ve done more than a few podcasts over the years as a guest speaker. I’m a senior software engineer who has been shipping software continuously since ‘87.

(miscellaneous personal stuff about me that I deleted)

I want you to know that I heard your Ruby Gems / Bunder episode and I thought you did a great job. That was a tough topic to cover and I was impressed with your fairness.

And I was excited about applying to be a co host and then I heard your comments about Charlie Kirk, specifically:

I agree with Charlie on a lot of the things that he talked about, right, 
But at the end of the day:

* We need to be good to each other.
* We need to understand each other.
* Right, this kind of violence, celebrating that somebody got killed, 
you know, the way that we treat each other sometimes because you're 
on the other side of the political aisle, it's not okay.

And I think a lot of times if we just go talk to people and understand
where they're coming from and what they're worried about and what 
they're dealing with and all of that stuff.
(That's from a transcript of your Inside the Ruby Gems Controversy episode)

Video clip where Chuck agrees with Charlie Kirk

All of your comments (good to each other, understand each other, not celebrating a killing) are ones I actually agree with but I wonder if you actually know what Charlie Kirk has said over the years. Here are some quotes from Charlie Kirk

“We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the mid-1960s.”
“[The death penalty] should be public, should be quick, should be televised… I think at a certain age, it’s an initiation… At what age should you start to see public executions?”
“I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made up new age term that does a lot of damage.”
“They’re coming out, and they’re saying, ‘I’m only here because of affirmative action.’ Yeah, we know. You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.”
“It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment.”
“MLK was awful. He’s not a good person. He said one good thing he actually didn’t believe.”
“Jewish donors have been the number one funding mechanism of radical open-border, neoliberal, quasi-Marxist policies, cultural institutions and nonprofits. This is a beast created by secular Jews and now it’s coming for Jews, and they’re like, ‘What on Earth happened?’ And it’s not just the colleges. It’s the nonprofits, it’s the movies, it’s Hollywood, it’s all of it.”

These aren’t made up. I don’t know how you can say that you want to keep Ruby Welcoming when you are for someone who was so against black people, gay people, muslims, Palestinians, Trans People, etc.

Here’s where I sourced them from but they are all over the Internet:

https://zeteo.com/p/charlie-kirk-in-his-own-words

I’m sorry but Charlie Kirk was a hate monger. He did not deserve what happened to him but you saying that you agree with him on “a lot of the things that he talked about” really casts you and Ruby Rogues in a very, very bad light.

I really do appreciate all the good work you’ve done for Ruby and Rails over the years but on this issue, I don’t understand how you can take the position that you are taking. In closing, as one father to another, is this the type of message that you want your kids to know that you endorse?

Best

Scott