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by macscam 3680 days ago
Unfortunately, I don't disagree with these points.

But the author says at the end: "So my message is: Make Ruby Great Again."

Ending the talk with this implies that this is the message they've been saying up to that point. But there is no discussion given as to how Ruby should be made "Great Again".

As a 3-year Ruby programmer (who started with the language), I don't hear this and get filled with optimism or inspiration. The underlying message seems to be that it's time to move on.

1 comments

I feel similarly: it's a scary message! I posted it and emphasized some of the points because I think it's important to not be complacent. If you're a rubyist who lived through the excitement and explosion of 2006-2010-ish, you might dismiss Node.js and friends as fads. You might assume that the rest of the world will have learned from the lessons of the Ruby community. Even if you don't believe those things, I wouldn't blame rubyists for assuming that previous pillars / saviors of the Ruby community — Yehuda, DHH, _Why, Matz, etc. — will soon stand up again and "make things right" by setting the tech community straight as to the benefits of Ruby / Rails.

But what this post concisely shows is that those heroes of the past probably won't. Many of them have moved on. Ruby hasn't been the "new shiny" darling of the open source community for some time. Ruby is in a very delicate transitional time. And unless the current group of active Rubyists take this very seriously, and ask how they (we!) can help make Ruby a durable, meaningful, dynamic, powerful community for the long-term, that much of the efforts and great work of Ruby and Rails will likely forgetten faster than you can say "down-vote".

see also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11789913

I finished my ruby 'bootcamp' in 2014 and the two < 6 month Rails API jobs I've held have been rather shitty. So I don't feel this invincibility. For me, it's more been a process of realizing the bootcamp ads are, well ... ads. And I'd bet that Rubyists are probably majority bootcamp grads. I'll groan and admit a defeated sigh.