Having recently switched most of our internal development from C# to Python and Powershell I get it. I can’t imagine not building small web apps in Python and I imagine PHP and RnR are exactly the same experience of getting things to simply work extremely fast.
[1] https://github.com/DFE-Digital?q=&type=&language=ruby&sort=
How was the move from C# to Python?
Ruby hasn't evolved much either.
Rails only scales so far and then scaling gets really challenging, obviously the named companies have figured it out, but its not easy. For example, rails due to the high coupling between models and the database, rspec test get very contrived trying to setup the db state for each test run. Compared to other languages like Python or golang where the sql-layer is abstracted from the model layer.
Compared to languages like Python which provide very similar developer experiences but also the power of ML modeling, ruby is falling behind.
puts "those who aren't building interesting systems in #{RUBY_ENGINE} write comments about #{RUBY_ENGINE}'s demise"
No one cares what you are developing your product in. Maybe some intern during an interview is salivating about your $BESPOKE_IMPLMENTATION, but at the end of the day, Ruby and other dynamic languages solved a very explicit problem of "hey compiled languages are great and I can design a very high level system and then needle down into whatever I want to behave in very explicit ways, but damn I want to get this done in like 30 minutes instead of over 3 days"
I feel like anyone who needs a blog post about some sorceress' concoction of systems to feel validated about making something that solves a problem, especially a problem of theirs - even if it's for your grandma, or a few close friends, or even just yourself... you just don't get it. waxing philosophically about tech is fun and gets any number of rocks off but at the end of the day, if you love scheme and know how to whip up something in 30 seconds that would take an hour in java 17 pro max (ellison edition), go for it, publish it, run it on your raspberry pi. This fixation on chasing the dragon every 15 minutes is a complete waste of time and is effectively super counterproductive.
How many breaking changes has node gone through? Our boy Ryan Dahl literally reimplemented a JS runtime as Deno in Rust because he was like "ya i made node and it was cool for a bit but this is getting out of hand" Great! Use Deno! Use Node! Use Fortran if you're productive in it. The idea that you have to curate what shit you're learning because of a predicted decline in the ecosystem of said shit is such a waste of time and I shake my head in sadness at anyone who isn't learning something because they fear it might be deprecated tomorrow. Be the change you want to see in the world. If anything, the APIs youre using in $POPULAR_LANGUAGE will be deprecated and the APIs that are not getting blog posts on HN are actually still stable. Run it in a container! Who cares!
You know what will be not important? deep ponderences of some tech rolled out over an API like AWS Lambdas or Google's AMP stuff, or React, or Angular (remember that? Lmao! Only a few years ago!). Focus on fundamentals and avoid the constant churn of new features that get deprecated 6 quarters from now.
Rails needs some help
When it comes to building feature-rich web applications quickly and sanely, Ruby is still hard to beat IMO.
I use it extensively to avoid duplicating scope code.
For instance:
class Listing
scope :active, -> { where("expired_at > ?", Date.current).where.not(suspended: true) }
class User
has_many :listings
So instead of doing this (which is terrible):
user.joins(:listings).distinct.where("listings.expired_at > ? AND listings.suspended != FALSE", Date.current)
You can simply:
user.joins(:listings).distinct.merge(Listing.active)
Rails docs are amazing, but #merge doesn't get enough love. Maybe I'll issue a pull request to improve it with some examples like this and the ones from the article.
Also if you're on the fat-models team and you have lots of behaviors and business logic on your models, it's often easier to just go with Active Record, because the second you wander off the beaten path (e.g. handwritten joins) you start dealing with weird franken-models that contain attributes from multiple tables, but not their behaviors (methods, callbacks).
Also, I appreciate the Rails love.
I know this is not a Who Is Hiring post, but if you are into Rails/Postgres and in the market (between UTC-4 and UTC-8 timezones), feel free to send me a note: gabe at instrumentl.com. We are doing some "biggish" data work helping nonprofits find grants and other fundraising opportunities.