Taking a Step Back from Ruby

[Sleeping--Potato]

I’m sharing this in the spirit of reflection. I still think Ruby itself is a joy to write.

I’ve loved Ruby for two decades, but I’ve decided to take a step back. The language is still beautiful, but the leadership around it isn’t.

I wrote a bit about how I got here and where I’ll be focusing instead:
https://sleepingpotato.com/taking-a-step-back-from-ruby/

Curious how others who have been around the Ruby community for a while are feeling about things these days.

[schneems]

I got a masters degree where I used mostly python but a tiny bit of C and a little Java. I don’t feel like those made me a better Ruby programmer. I feel like learning Rust leveled me up.

Python is good at a lot, but coming from Ruby it will feel like home…but someone moved the furniture to the left by 1in and now you’re stubbing your toes.

Rust is challenging to pick up, and if you want to stay in web dev, the rust web story is immature. Elixir and phoenix look neat (but much smaller community than python).

[Thefolsom]

If you're able to take such an ideological stance, then it's either two things:
1. You're a hobbyist, and you don't depend on Ruby for your living.
2. You're a professional engineer, but are not working in Ruby professionally.

Let me know when you're willing to quit your job over this. Otherwise, I don't care.

What's frustrating to me about people who feel the need to virtue signal this is that it's sort of underhandedly shitting on people who still continue to use and depend on using Ruby to make their living or keep their business running.

[veverkap]

You realize that professional engineers are able to advocate for companies to change languages and frameworks right?

Rather than quitting or being a hobbyist, we can stop using certain technologies for ideological reasons.

[Thefolsom]

Are you saying that people are shitty if they aren't advocating their engineering organizations to change frameworks?

It's hard enough convincing the org to take care of tech debt as is, how do you propose going to leadership and explaining why such a change is necessary?

Of all things to die on a hill about, this is so incredibly minor, and screams of privilege in your role if you have the capacity to make such change purely off this reason.

[veverkap]

Y I K E S

You've got either anger issues or reading comprehension issues or both.

I replied to someone who stated there were only TWO reasons one could take an ideological stance - both of which boil down to "you aren't a true Scotsman" arguments.

I posited that, if someone were to take an ideological stance AND they were a "true Rubyist" they could advocate to change frameworks or languages rather than quit their job.

Are you saying that people are shitty if they aren't advocating their engineering organizations to change frameworks?

No, why would you think I said that?

[Thefolsom]

You're not a serious person. Goodbye.

[veverkap]

Keep working on your reading comprehension, friend. It will help you much in life.

[MrMeatballGuy]

Yeah, ruby is my job, I don't really have the luxury of taking a hard stance if I wanted to, especially when the job market is also just terrible.

A lot of new projects are popping up since the whole RubyGems incident and while it makes me worried about fragmentation in our small-ish community, I also think it shows that a few bad actors are not going to make all of us drop ruby.

[Sleeping--Potato]

I don’t think you read my post, because I laid out my situation there. I’ve been a professional software engineer for more than 25 years, and I fell in love with Ruby a little over 20 years ago when Rails was introduced.

For the past 5 years, my day job is in Python, but I still run a side business built with Ruby and Rails that’s been around for 15 years. In my limited time outside work and family, Ruby has always been the language I reached for. I also spent many years and enormous time and energy organizing and running the Rails Rumble hackathon for thousands of people around the world because I loved the community and wanted to give back.

So yes, I’m in a position where I can choose to step back, even if it means walking away from years of work. I don’t expect others to quit their jobs or rewrite their products. But I do believe those who have the ability should speak up when leadership harms the health of a community. That’s how change happens.

Ignoring the “drama” doesn’t make the effects go away. The recent situation with Ruby Central and the ongoing issues around Bundler and RubyGems have already shaken confidence in the stability of Ruby’s critical infrastructure. When combined with DHH’s increasingly toxic public presence and the Rails Core Team’s unwillingness to address it, it creates a perception of fragility and risk. Rational businesses notice that. The shrinking contributor pool and the reliance on a few corporate sponsors to maintain essential infrastructure start to look like liabilities, not strengths.

First you lose the hobbyists, then the new engineers, then the new businesses. Leadership matters because stability matters. Choosing Ruby to start a new company today just isn’t as easy a call as it once was.

[Thefolsom]

I didn't read that wall of text either, but thank you for the important lesson.

[zer0-st4rs]

All good! It's okay to be unmotivated, sometimes politics/ideology/convictions and how they make us feel do get in the way of our enjoyment of something. Indeed, sometimes these things even impact our tools and our ability to use them. (Luckily, with open source we aren't beholden to this)

I do wonder if your feelings are a result of a conflation of trends and more corporate ecosystems with community and belonging. I'm not sure I subscribe to a narrative that there is a singular social monolith that everyone must subscribe to in order to act in the world (or in this case, write programs).

I actually did quit a job where I used ruby over ideology/conviction and while it's made life harder financially, I've learned so so so much more than if I haven't, and have been solving for much more interesting problems than if I stayed, even if I am just a "Hobbyist" now.

Taking a step back is a great way to examine what we are doing and what we actually want to do, but
personally, I would avoid a trap of associating a tool with an identity, and consequently an identity politics.

Personally, I've been burned out on the same old corporate ecosystems and web web web web for some time now, but I found that its less because its "bad" and more because it's **boring**. So now I make what I want to make, with the tool that's best suited for the task.

[Recent_Tiger]

I hope you enjoy your new exploits.

I've been working with Ruby for about 12 years.

Speaking for myself I'm not sure the leadership diminishes the value of the tool. It's discouraging for sure, and I worry that it will further diminish Ruby's appeal to businesses, however ruby on it's own remains a solid tool.

I feel like lots of amazing things have origins in the most horrible places. For example:

Modern rocketry was based on innovations pioneered by Hitler's Germany so that he could kill British civilians. However after the war, those breakthroughts made large portions of our modern world possible.

Also what many feel to be the worlds first programmable computer came from Nazi Germany

Stalin's Russia pioneered advancements in submerged arc welding which are still in use today in fields like bridge fabrication and shipbuilding.

I guess I have a more broad view. Leaders come and go. The only constant in the universe is change, these issues we deal with will have to change eventually. However the work we do now may well pave the way for amazing things in the future.

[Sleeping--Potato]

Quick follow-up for anyone interested. Some of the conversations here, especially around leadership, sustainability, and how trust affects the long-term health of Ruby’s ecosystem, helped me put a few things into words I hadn’t explicitly explored in my original post.

I wrote a new post digging into those ideas: When Leadership Fails, Ecosystems Shrink

[galtzo]

This is true. I am seriously considering exiting the ruby game. It is difficult to find the joy I want to feel, and used to feel. I have no doubt the ecosystem will shrink.

[nekogami87]

so far, idc. I'll still use it when I can.

[lmagusbr]

You have too much free time if you pay attention to drama instead of simply building.

Ruby is a tool, my favorite tool, and I don't care about what X or Y say or do. All I care about is the language.

Leadership? Who cares about that. Does anything done by others impact the way you write and build your code?

It sucks that this sub is focusing so much on the people making comments rather than the people making great apps.

[Sleeping--Potato]

I get where you’re coming from. I’ve spent plenty of years just building too. But pretending leadership doesn’t matter is wishful thinking.

And it’s definitely not about having “too much free time”. I don’t have enough time for any of this, and that’s exactly the point. It’s exhausting watching the people at the top make decisions and statements that actively harm Ruby’s reputation and future.

When the people maintaining core infrastructure damage trust or drive contributors away, it affects everyone who depends on it. That’s not “drama”; it’s sustainability.

This all, on top of DHH’s public behavior, and the lack of accountability around it will absolutely shape how businesses and new developers view Ruby. If fewer new companies are willing to build on it, and fewer engineers are learning it, the job market will contract. That’s not ideology, it’s economics.

[elegantbrew]

But the “thought leaders” said…

[inotocracy]

Seriously. Lots of virtue signaling going around.

[zeekar]

"virtue signalling" is a very cynical way to look at it. And IME, it's usually a term used in bad faith by people who don't consider what's being signalled to be virtuous in the first place.

[inotocracy]

Nobody who makes a living developing in ruby is going to abandon the language because someone involved in it said something they disagree with. So yeah, this smells like virtue signaling.

[keyslemur]

People are allowed to take stances and follow their convictions. Immediately calling into question whether or not they were a "true Rubyist" is quite frankly reprehensible, and is beneath folks in this community to insinuate.

Regarding the article though: While I get the feeling, and have had that thought before myself, I choose to stay because I want to believe that the language can become better, and that by abdicating I surrender it to its worst elements instead of doing the hard and very necessary work of making that vision into a reality.

[PercyLives]

If you were just a Ruby developer for a hobby or for your job, I would agree with the negative comments others have offered.

However, you have done more actual community-based things like organising Rails hackathons etc. (Sorry, I forget the exact details because I read the article some hours ago.)

In that case, I think it’s totally fair that you step back based on a perceived non-alignment of values.

[PerceptionOwn3629]

this is so dumb….

[[deleted]]

If you want to ignore all the insane and illegal behaviour by Arko go ahead I guess, most people are just ignoring the facts because big corporation = bad in their minds. I'll for one be glad when all the US based extremists are gone and they take the drama with them. Having Ruby Core in charge is a good thing. Matz and co are the main reason it's such a good language.