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IIRC Rails was actually extracted from Basecamp. The "DHH makes a blog" video was the hello world demo that made Rails famous.

rmetzler 5y ago
And DHH is a software engineer. The grandparent comment sounds like he isn't.
- ankurpatel 5y ago
  DHH is a software writer :)
- rst 5y ago
  He's a software engineer with a business background (his degree is from Copenhagen Business School), who thinks about problems both ways.
- rubyist5eva 5y ago
  DHH is a business person that solves problems, who just happens to know how to write code :)
- fellowniusmonk 5y ago
  Purely anecdotally, but there's a weird thing with software engineering and architecture where it's heavily linguistic compared to older engineering disciplines. For whatever reason there doesn't seem to be a huge overlap between people drawn to traditional engineering and linguistics. I've repeatedly observed that some people have an affinity for the hardware (and are closer in disposition to engineers in other disciplines), some for the software, and only a smaller subset really enjoys both. So much of what makes api's, languages and complex sytems easy to reason about are their linguistic ergonomics. It's just a feeling but I hold the position that there is still a lot of room for improvement in language ergonomics and density, and that we're still closer to latin than english in both linguistic efficiency & developer tools. https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2015/06/whats_the_most_efficient_language.html https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2015/06/whats_the_most... I think DHH (and rails by extension) is an engineer with strong linguistic affinity biased towards financial utility. So it's no wonder that first blog video blew so many minds.
ryanbrunner 5y ago
I used to work for Highrise (after it spun out from Basecamp), and if you looked through the early commits, there was definitely some functionality that were ancestors of Rails features.

rmetzler 5y ago

And DHH is a software engineer. The grandparent comment sounds like he isn't.

ankurpatel 5y ago
DHH is a software writer :)
rst 5y ago
He's a software engineer with a business background (his degree is from Copenhagen Business School), who thinks about problems both ways.
rubyist5eva 5y ago
DHH is a business person that solves problems, who just happens to know how to write code :)
fellowniusmonk 5y ago
Purely anecdotally, but there's a weird thing with software engineering and architecture where it's heavily linguistic compared to older engineering disciplines. For whatever reason there doesn't seem to be a huge overlap between people drawn to traditional engineering and linguistics. I've repeatedly observed that some people have an affinity for the hardware (and are closer in disposition to engineers in other disciplines), some for the software, and only a smaller subset really enjoys both. So much of what makes api's, languages and complex sytems easy to reason about are their linguistic ergonomics. It's just a feeling but I hold the position that there is still a lot of room for improvement in language ergonomics and density, and that we're still closer to latin than english in both linguistic efficiency & developer tools. https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2015/06/whats_the_most_efficient_language.html https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2015/06/whats_the_most... I think DHH (and rails by extension) is an engineer with strong linguistic affinity biased towards financial utility. So it's no wonder that first blog video blew so many minds.

ryanbrunner 5y ago

I used to work for Highrise (after it spun out from Basecamp), and if you looked through the early commits, there was definitely some functionality that were ancestors of Rails features.