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I don't get the purpose of the article. So the first complaint is that programming was hip but isn't now. Who cares? Do you program because it is hip or did you

I don't get the purpose of the article. So the first complaint is that programming was hip but isn't now. Who cares? Do you program because it is hip or did you choose the language, framework and so on because it is hip? I hope not. Maybe if that is one of the concerns, just change the language. Is Nodejs still hip or Go or do you need to program your stack in Swift even before the language is really stable or as an official package manager? The next complain is that Ruby is slow. Ok, fine maybe you build the next Uber and you need to scale almost unlimited. Then maybe Ruby is not the tool you should use (disclaimer: I know not that much about scalability with Ruby). Before you need to scale you usually need to get to the market and if your stack is easy and fast to build with Ruby just use Ruby and then rewrite critical stuff with "faster" languages. Hopefully everything is faster then and you don't discover that the database is the bottleneck. Only the last complaint is something I get, debugging and all the gems. That is something I had problems with when doing Nodejs projects too. Still, being able to add just a module that does all the OAuth2 handling and I just needed to add 2 or 3 lines of code was nice. So in the end, what is the point of the article? Is it just the roadmap of Ruby that bothers you? Is it the Rails community that consists of lazy thinkers (not my opinion)? Or do you see all the people doing fancy and hip stuff like Protocol-based programming and functional programming and you doing still OOP stuff? If that's it, learn a language from those realms and try it, I'm pretty sure you will find those being the silver bullet either. I know my comment sounds like a rant, it is not meant like that. I'm just wondering what got you to write the article and what is really bothering you. Also, why are so many people afraid to miss the next big thing? While developing and working with a language and framework you're not just learning that particular language and framework but you learn how to approach certain problems, what pitfalls to consider and so on. You can use that with most other language/frameworks again. You didn't waste your time.

blub 10y ago
They're probably bothered because of the realisation that the foundation of their toolset is made of clay tied together with duct tape. And one can only add so much to the typical web development toolchain before if falls down like a house of cards. To me it's surprising to see some people finally begin to figure out that dynamic typing, monkey patching, importing packages upon packages can only get you so far. Yesterday it was Ruby, today it's node.js. Maybe tomorrow we'll have something that doesn't have to be replaced in 6 years again.
- rorykoehler 10y ago
  I don't see the problem. If you get so far and then need to do something else, only then is the time to start worrying about doing something else. Until that point the focus should be on shipping a quality product that satisfies a need. Do that well enough and you will be in a position to start worrying about using better languages for certain problems. Almost every tech company that is slightly mature has multiple languages in production anyhow and they got there because they built stuff and shipped it.
  - blub 10y ago
    The big question is if they got there because of the tools and practices they use or in spite of them. With enough money and talent one can use pretty much anything. And the problem with having to rewrite your stuff is that the company might go out of business while doing it. Assuming it's something complex, and not e.g. reddit (which I suppose is not at all easy to build as a full product, but at the end of the day is an online forum)
    - rorykoehler 10y ago
      If your company goes out of business because you spend time re-architecting then you're doing it wrong. The thing with stuff like Rails is that we don't need money to start quickly. They are amazing for validating a business idea and doing fast iterative agile development which is the core to building a successful startup. Once you've done that and have either cashflow or serious funding you can afford to pull out some functionality into separate services with more appropriate architecture etc. For what most MVP's are, tools like Rails are very good as they optimise for build speed. Clearly they can't do everything and shouldn't be used for some things but for most web things they are a solid choice. Companies that optimise prematurely are far more likely to go out of business.
- chris_wot 10y ago
  Funny thing for a C++ programmer to say...

blub 10y ago

They're probably bothered because of the realisation that the foundation of their toolset is made of clay tied together with duct tape. And one can only add so much to the typical web development toolchain before if falls down like a house of cards. To me it's surprising to see some people finally begin to figure out that dynamic typing, monkey patching, importing packages upon packages can only get you so far. Yesterday it was Ruby, today it's node.js. Maybe tomorrow we'll have something that doesn't have to be replaced in 6 years again.

rorykoehler 10y ago
I don't see the problem. If you get so far and then need to do something else, only then is the time to start worrying about doing something else. Until that point the focus should be on shipping a quality product that satisfies a need. Do that well enough and you will be in a position to start worrying about using better languages for certain problems. Almost every tech company that is slightly mature has multiple languages in production anyhow and they got there because they built stuff and shipped it.
- blub 10y ago
  The big question is if they got there because of the tools and practices they use or in spite of them. With enough money and talent one can use pretty much anything. And the problem with having to rewrite your stuff is that the company might go out of business while doing it. Assuming it's something complex, and not e.g. reddit (which I suppose is not at all easy to build as a full product, but at the end of the day is an online forum)
  - rorykoehler 10y ago
    If your company goes out of business because you spend time re-architecting then you're doing it wrong. The thing with stuff like Rails is that we don't need money to start quickly. They are amazing for validating a business idea and doing fast iterative agile development which is the core to building a successful startup. Once you've done that and have either cashflow or serious funding you can afford to pull out some functionality into separate services with more appropriate architecture etc. For what most MVP's are, tools like Rails are very good as they optimise for build speed. Clearly they can't do everything and shouldn't be used for some things but for most web things they are a solid choice. Companies that optimise prematurely are far more likely to go out of business.
chris_wot 10y ago
Funny thing for a C++ programmer to say...