[dhagz]

It's teams of people with varying skill levels under time pressure.

Ruby is a language where projects can suddenly bloom with hyper-complexity if you're not careful. You really have to strictly adhere to a style guide and have seniors who can catch the violations automated checkers like Rubocop can't.

[joelbluminator]

It might be a bit more pronounced in Ruby, but I doubt this doesn't happen a lot in javascript / python / whatever language actually. You always better have at least a couple of seniors in each team that go over every PR and maintain the project's health. No getting around that no matter the language. Now languages like php / ruby / js are notorious for their low code quality but that's less about the language and more about how and where they're used: tons of startups, young people in the beginning of their careers, pressure to find market fit etc. I'd be surprised if .net / java / python projects don't turn into crap under these conditions. The worst code I've produced was written like that and I really doubt the tech stack would have made any big difference in the quality of code I produced.