[jghn]

I can't speak to anything regarding Windows dev here as I haven't done any of that since the mid-90s, and even then it was just a short project.

That said, I see what you're getting at now and it isn't what I thought you were talking about previously. It looks like what you're talking about is it taking a few days (or so) to get a working environment up and running vs. nearly instantaneous now? If so, fair enough I totally agree.

I thought you were talking more about the more nuts & bolts parts, like it taking a few weeks to come up to speed on Python (for instance) instead of several months. I've always felt that claims of it being difficult to change languages or other type things (e.g. changing from Oracle to MySQL) were radically overblown, and these days w/ sites like SO it's pretty much trivial.

[zamalek]

The main issue with Ruby is now historical. When I tried to pick it up a few years back (around the time SO was probably being written) it could be somewhat hostile to Windows users. Gems/what-have-you assuming the existence of the GNU compiler chain and assuming that they were running on a unix.

These days the landscape is a lot better, especially when it comes to Ruby.