Matz As a Japanese person, getting involved in a community as English-heavy as RoR can make establishing a presence for yourself quite a challenge.
 
Kamizono Yes, that’s true. But sometimes it being difficult is part of the reason I work so hard on writing patches. When it looks like solving an issue will lead to a debate I tend to give up fighting.
I think the way I’m correcting an issue is the most correct but it can be difficult to explain that to another person. So instead I aim to fix other areas around the issue so that the problem and the way to fix it will become apparent to everyone around me and I don’t have to explain it. By doing it this way, there’s no need for detailed explanation, just the code is enough. I’m bad at debating. If it looks like there will be an argument I just work on progressing understanding through other patches and I can gain consensus without discussion.
 
Matz I see. For the many Japanese engineers who aren’t good at debating, at least in English, this could be a very useful tip.
 
Kamizono I think so.
 
Matz There’s perhaps a lot of people reading this who don’t know much about your activities so could I ask since when you’ve been working on patches at this pace. A rough estimate will do.
 
Kamizono Let me think. The release that didn’t have the patch I spoke of earlier was RoR 4.2, which I think was released in December 2014.
 
Matz So you would say you started at the end of 2014?
 
Kamizono It was after that. Particularly I added a lot of patches to 5.0 and 5.1.
 
Matz So you’ve been very busy with this work for the past two years?
 
Kamizono Yes, about two and a half to three years.
 
Matz And about how much work have you done in that time, roughly?
 
Kamizono Well I have had about 800 pull requests.
 

Matz So in just under three years you responded to 800 pull requests?
 
Kamizono Yes, on average.
 
Matz You worked alone?
 
Kamizono Yeah, almost every day.
 
Matz That’s what it’s like.
 
Kamizono It’s true.
 
Matz I see. That’s incredible. Making your presence that way, with a unique strategy, that’s how you were able to become a committer without meeting DHH.
 
Kamizono Yes.
 
Matz How was it? Do you recommend others try your stategy?
 
Kamizono Well, I guess I do. For people who aren’t very comfortable debating in English like many Japanese contributors, don’t tackle issues, make patches. There are times when if you just write the code, you don’t have to explain all the problems in English.