[hackerboos]

There's always going to be a backend, for security reasons if anything.

I've shied away from front-end (read Javascript) development because of it's fragmented ecosystem. Although I've taken an interest in Clojurescript recently...

As for a new language I'd recommend Elixir. It's functional which will introduce a new way of thinking and similar enough to syntax to Ruby.

Dave Thomas who wrote the original PickAxe book has recently released a book on Elixir.

[sethherr]

Agreed, backend isn't going to disappear. I was thinking of learning go, but going for Elixir seems like it might be a better option - happy to have read this.

I don't think ruby/rails is going anywhere for a while though, it's too easy to get things up and running. And I think node is going to be around for a while too, and increased familiarity with javascript is pretty much guaranteed to be helpful, so going that direction isn't a bad idea either.

[rubiquity]

Your experiences are nearly identical to mine. I've also moved away from keeping with the latest JavaScript tools/frameworks and have really taken to Elixir. I still write a ton of Ruby but having Elixir in my tool set has been awesome. Elixir is great for the things Ruby isn't, namely SSE/WebSockets and background processing flows beyond just fire and forget.

[hackerboos]

The thing that did it for me was watching Benjamin Tan Wei Hao talk on speeding up background jobs, which was a problem for me at the time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X1J1lVzRuQ

http://www.neo.com/2014/08/11/ruby-elixir-polyglottin-ftw

[kyllo]

I have been learning Erlang because I like the practices it encourages, but Elixir seems like Erlang with more modern syntax and especially better string handling. I think I will give it a try.

[vram22]

How much work is there for Elixir though? Asking as one who doesn't know.