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Back when I read the O'Reilly book on Ruby on Rails, it liberally referred to "Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby." That's when I realized something: The book, and t
by gwbas1c 3y ago
Back when I read the O'Reilly book on Ruby on Rails, it liberally referred to "Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby."
That's when I realized something: The book, and thus Ruby on Rails, appealed to teenagers as their first programming language.
Teenagers get very passionate about things, and emotionally involved with their choices.
Python is a tool. Good tools are boring, and don't come with references to bacon and other grammatical jokes. They are about performing a task; and they don't need to entertain in order to keep a teenager's attention.
I look at RoR as a way that many young people got excited about programming, but not really the best tool for the job. It deserves a place in history next to Visual Basic, because it met people where they were and allowed them to build something "good enough" when other tools were too difficult or time consuming to use.
- simonw 3y agoI don't think your hunch here works. Why wasn't a teenager when they wrote that book. The Ruby community had very few teenagers involved when Rails was released. The Ruby and Rails communities did do a great job of attracting passionate, creative people. Those people weren't teenagers.
- gwbas1c 3y agoAll of the great teachers that I had as a teenager were adults. They knew how to relate to teenagers, just like Why's book.