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Honest question: does it make sense to learn Ruby in 2020, with the hopes to actually have a job with it for the next 5 years? I want to leave JS world for some

by bnt 6y ago

Honest question: does it make sense to learn Ruby in 2020, with the hopes to actually have a job with it for the next 5 years? I want to leave JS world for something different, and I’m evaluating Elixir, Python and even PHP. What I’m looking to work on are basically SaaS sites, nothing too crazy. Would appreciate any thoughts.

d4mi3n 6y ago
Depends on the industries and locales you work in. Ruby still has a strong contingent in SF, though I hear it’s somewhat uncommon out in London. This is anecdotal and from fintech circles I’ve worked in.
- busterarm 6y ago
  Still very strong in NY, but everyone's looking for senior hires to do cleanup jobs to fix poorly implemented bolt-on caching schemes in ailing Rails projects. Ruby is still a great, powerful language, but in the last couple of years I've started to notice that it isn't getting the tooling love that it used to from the community. I'd still work in it for the right job, just like most any other language. Because tools are tools. Language shouldn't get as much emphasis as it does.
purple-again 6y ago
Don’t bother with a small selection of random opinions that may or may not have an agenda that doesn’t align with yours. Simply go to the monthly who’s hiring posts and compare Ruby to Python etc. for the technologies you are considering. You will need to understand that Rails is actually the keyword you are looking for rather that Ruby and I don’t know enough about the Python ecosystem to help you but I think maybe Django is the major player in that space.
drchopchop 6y ago
Ruby's a bit of a niche, but there are a fair number of big-name companies built on it (Github, Basecamp, etc), certainly not bad to have in your arsenal. Note: Ruby is the programming language, but in the SaaS world that's usually coupled with Rails (the MVC architecture) and ActiveRecord (the database/SQL layer).
iovrthoughtthis 6y ago
My personal experience is that the ruby job market is quite strong. For context, I've been a ruby developer (among other languages) for 5+ years. Have you tried looking for some ruby work?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
someguy101010 6y ago
Out of the choices that you listed, python is the best long term bet imo, especially for its overall practical use outside of SaaS products.
save_ferris 6y ago
6 yr ruby dev here. There’s still a pretty good job market for ruby depending on your location/willingness to go remote. I have noticed that more ruby shops are tending to build new services in languages like Elixir and Go, usually out of scaling necessity. It does seem like fewer new apps are being built on ruby these days, but’s that’s largely my personal observation, and the data may say otherwise.
pqdbr 6y ago
I have explored the Node ecosystem/frameworks and Python/Django, but I still wouldn't trade Rails for anything.

by bnt 6y ago

d4mi3n 6y ago

Depends on the industries and locales you work in. Ruby still has a strong contingent in SF, though I hear it’s somewhat uncommon out in London. This is anecdotal and from fintech circles I’ve worked in.

busterarm 6y ago
Still very strong in NY, but everyone's looking for senior hires to do cleanup jobs to fix poorly implemented bolt-on caching schemes in ailing Rails projects. Ruby is still a great, powerful language, but in the last couple of years I've started to notice that it isn't getting the tooling love that it used to from the community. I'd still work in it for the right job, just like most any other language. Because tools are tools. Language shouldn't get as much emphasis as it does.

purple-again 6y ago

Don’t bother with a small selection of random opinions that may or may not have an agenda that doesn’t align with yours. Simply go to the monthly who’s hiring posts and compare Ruby to Python etc. for the technologies you are considering. You will need to understand that Rails is actually the keyword you are looking for rather that Ruby and I don’t know enough about the Python ecosystem to help you but I think maybe Django is the major player in that space.

drchopchop 6y ago

Ruby's a bit of a niche, but there are a fair number of big-name companies built on it (Github, Basecamp, etc), certainly not bad to have in your arsenal. Note: Ruby is the programming language, but in the SaaS world that's usually coupled with Rails (the MVC architecture) and ActiveRecord (the database/SQL layer).

iovrthoughtthis 6y ago

My personal experience is that the ruby job market is quite strong. For context, I've been a ruby developer (among other languages) for 5+ years. Have you tried looking for some ruby work?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

someguy101010 6y ago

Out of the choices that you listed, python is the best long term bet imo, especially for its overall practical use outside of SaaS products.

save_ferris 6y ago

6 yr ruby dev here. There’s still a pretty good job market for ruby depending on your location/willingness to go remote. I have noticed that more ruby shops are tending to build new services in languages like Elixir and Go, usually out of scaling necessity. It does seem like fewer new apps are being built on ruby these days, but’s that’s largely my personal observation, and the data may say otherwise.

pqdbr 6y ago

I have explored the Node ecosystem/frameworks and Python/Django, but I still wouldn't trade Rails for anything.