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Saw this gem of a gem on reddit earlier today and there were some trollish comments about no one using ruby anymore blah blah blah which quietly bummed me out.

Saw this gem of a gem on reddit earlier today and there were some trollish comments about no one using ruby anymore blah blah blah which quietly bummed me out. Surprised and Delighted to see it as #1 here on HN tonight!

adamtaylor_13 2y ago
There’s a lot of folks who get immense schadenfreude talking about things they know nothing about to strangers on the internet who also don’t know anything. Don’t let it bum you out.
someothherguyy 2y ago
> some trollish comments about no one using ruby anymore It is somewhat objectively true: https://octoverse.github.com/2022/top-programming-languages https://octoverse.github.com/2022/top-programming-languages https://github.blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/GitHub-Octoverse-2024-top-programming-languages.png?w=1200 https://github.blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/GitHub-Octove... It doesn't mean much, and this library can be reproduced in any of those top 10 languages from what I can tell.
- nextos 2y ago
  Is position #10 in https://octoverse.github.com/2022/top-programming-languages https://octoverse.github.com/2022/top-programming-languages bad? It ranks right after Shell (#8) and C (#9). Ruby is still a mainstream language, and it's fairly easy to find a Ruby job. Compare that to Clojure or Haskell.
  - someothherguyy 2y ago
    It has dropped in popularity and has never regained the popularity it once held. Of the many developers who used to write Ruby (myself included), I would wager not many of those same people still do.
    - vidarh 2y ago
      It's dropped in relative popularity, but the demand feels like it's still increasing to me (been doing Ruby professionally since 2006), just not as fast as some of the other languages. Keep in mind the number of developers overall is rising rapidly still.
  - josephg 2y ago
    Compare that to Rust. For all the hype it has, very few companies are shipping products with it. There are a few, but nowhere near as many as are using Ruby.
    - simonask 2y ago
      That's probably true, but also a poor measure of success. I bet there are more companies using Ruby than there are companies using C++, too. They fill different niches, and different types of companies deliver very different products using those languages. The ratio of people who can code in Python or Ruby to people who can code in Rust or C++ is very high.
      - jupp0r 2y ago
        I don’t know why “number of companies using language X” is a metric that is used here. Wordpress is serving 43% of websites on the internet as of 2025, so we should all be learning PHP!
    - Lio 2y ago
      I get your point but it's a case of right tool for the job. Every copy of Ruby now includes YJIT written in Rust because Rust is the right tool for that task. It's easy to forget though that number of lines of code required to do something is also a valid metric and Ruby beats Rust on that. So if you're shipping CRUD web apps that might be a more important metric than say memory usage or CPU time. Different job, different tool. More people want to ship web apps than write their own JITs. Engineering is the art of trade offs.
    - jupp0r 2y ago
      You are probably writing this in a browser with Rust code in it.
      - meindnoch 2y ago
        Safari has Rust?
      - 2y ago
- simonask 2y ago
  Ruby will always have a special place in my heart. I cut my teeth as a young programmer on that language, and I learnt its value (as well as the value of using something else) along the way. Ruby code can be downright poetic, for better or worse. There's a certain kind of magic to the kind of code it enables. That's not always good, but it _is_ beautiful. I encourage everybody to read the venerable "Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby" [1] to see what I'm talking about. I wish Ruby was cross-platform. It still only works on Windows using the MSYS2 emulation layer, and the only reason as far as I can tell is that it committed hard and early to `fork()` as the main way to use multiple cores. [1]: https://poignant.guide/ https://poignant.guide/
- speleding 2y ago
  Over the last 10 years the number of programmers has grown enormously. So ruby dropping in position does not necessarily imply the absolute number of ruby programmers went down.
Lio 2y ago
It's worth remembering that the trolls that complain about Ruby do so because they care about it. You'll often see the same names coming back on every post to angrily insist that no one is interested in Ruby ...apart from them obviously because if they didn't they would be busy trolling something else. :P
- bmacho 2y ago
  > It's worth remembering that the trolls that complain about Ruby do so because they care about it. I don't think so. I mean there are complains about stuff you care about like people complaining about Healthcare. (edit: there are other forms of caring, see my grandchild comment) Dissing on Ruby is definitely not this, they are not Ruby users wanting Ruby to be better. They don't even know Ruby apart from dissing on it is socially accepted, and makes them feel good.
  - mosselman 2y ago
    Usually people get huffed up about stuff they care about. Caring doesn’t mean wanting it to be better, it could also mean get worked up about. Surely a one-off comment about nobody using Ruby doesn’t mean you “care”, but if it is true that it is the same people who keep commenting, they obviously care. Is it because they are jealous of the beauty of Ruby/Rails, as a Rubyist I’d think so, but who is to say really. Maybe they worked at a company where they replaced whatever their favourite stack is with Rails and they have hated Ruby ever since. It could be anything. You wouldn’t keep responding to stuff you don’t care about at some level.
    - bmacho 2y ago
      Equating caring and wanting it to be better was a mistake on my part. It made my comment not true, and it made you worked-up. Sorry for that. All in all, I don't think that other forms of caring apply either. I think that parroting "Ruby is dead" doesn't mean that they care about Ruby, it's just a thing people like to parrot, without the meaning realizing in their heads. A form of bonding, a form of distraction, a form of opening to a social interaction, a form of self-reassurance etc. It is lot of things, and caring about Ruby at all is usually not among those (IMO).
jstummbillig 2y ago
Ruby, specially with Rails, is particularly suited for AI coding, because of how mature it is and convention over configuration: Most of the important stuff is up to date in the model, and the entire thing comes with a fairy comprehensive set of ideas of how to to be used cohesively to built entire apps.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

adamtaylor_13 2y ago

There’s a lot of folks who get immense schadenfreude talking about things they know nothing about to strangers on the internet who also don’t know anything. Don’t let it bum you out.

someothherguyy 2y ago

> some trollish comments about no one using ruby anymore It is somewhat objectively true: https://octoverse.github.com/2022/top-programming-languages https://octoverse.github.com/2022/top-programming-languages https://github.blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/GitHub-Octoverse-2024-top-programming-languages.png?w=1200 https://github.blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/GitHub-Octove... It doesn't mean much, and this library can be reproduced in any of those top 10 languages from what I can tell.

nextos 2y ago
Is position #10 in https://octoverse.github.com/2022/top-programming-languages https://octoverse.github.com/2022/top-programming-languages bad? It ranks right after Shell (#8) and C (#9). Ruby is still a mainstream language, and it's fairly easy to find a Ruby job. Compare that to Clojure or Haskell.
- someothherguyy 2y ago
  It has dropped in popularity and has never regained the popularity it once held. Of the many developers who used to write Ruby (myself included), I would wager not many of those same people still do.
  - vidarh 2y ago
    It's dropped in relative popularity, but the demand feels like it's still increasing to me (been doing Ruby professionally since 2006), just not as fast as some of the other languages. Keep in mind the number of developers overall is rising rapidly still.
- josephg 2y ago
  Compare that to Rust. For all the hype it has, very few companies are shipping products with it. There are a few, but nowhere near as many as are using Ruby.
  - simonask 2y ago
    That's probably true, but also a poor measure of success. I bet there are more companies using Ruby than there are companies using C++, too. They fill different niches, and different types of companies deliver very different products using those languages. The ratio of people who can code in Python or Ruby to people who can code in Rust or C++ is very high.
    - jupp0r 2y ago
      I don’t know why “number of companies using language X” is a metric that is used here. Wordpress is serving 43% of websites on the internet as of 2025, so we should all be learning PHP!
  - Lio 2y ago
    I get your point but it's a case of right tool for the job. Every copy of Ruby now includes YJIT written in Rust because Rust is the right tool for that task. It's easy to forget though that number of lines of code required to do something is also a valid metric and Ruby beats Rust on that. So if you're shipping CRUD web apps that might be a more important metric than say memory usage or CPU time. Different job, different tool. More people want to ship web apps than write their own JITs. Engineering is the art of trade offs.
  - jupp0r 2y ago
    You are probably writing this in a browser with Rust code in it.
    - meindnoch 2y ago
      Safari has Rust?
    - 2y ago
simonask 2y ago
Ruby will always have a special place in my heart. I cut my teeth as a young programmer on that language, and I learnt its value (as well as the value of using something else) along the way. Ruby code can be downright poetic, for better or worse. There's a certain kind of magic to the kind of code it enables. That's not always good, but it _is_ beautiful. I encourage everybody to read the venerable "Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby" [1] to see what I'm talking about. I wish Ruby was cross-platform. It still only works on Windows using the MSYS2 emulation layer, and the only reason as far as I can tell is that it committed hard and early to `fork()` as the main way to use multiple cores. [1]: https://poignant.guide/ https://poignant.guide/
speleding 2y ago
Over the last 10 years the number of programmers has grown enormously. So ruby dropping in position does not necessarily imply the absolute number of ruby programmers went down.

Lio 2y ago

It's worth remembering that the trolls that complain about Ruby do so because they care about it. You'll often see the same names coming back on every post to angrily insist that no one is interested in Ruby ...apart from them obviously because if they didn't they would be busy trolling something else. :P

bmacho 2y ago
> It's worth remembering that the trolls that complain about Ruby do so because they care about it. I don't think so. I mean there are complains about stuff you care about like people complaining about Healthcare. (edit: there are other forms of caring, see my grandchild comment) Dissing on Ruby is definitely not this, they are not Ruby users wanting Ruby to be better. They don't even know Ruby apart from dissing on it is socially accepted, and makes them feel good.
- mosselman 2y ago
  Usually people get huffed up about stuff they care about. Caring doesn’t mean wanting it to be better, it could also mean get worked up about. Surely a one-off comment about nobody using Ruby doesn’t mean you “care”, but if it is true that it is the same people who keep commenting, they obviously care. Is it because they are jealous of the beauty of Ruby/Rails, as a Rubyist I’d think so, but who is to say really. Maybe they worked at a company where they replaced whatever their favourite stack is with Rails and they have hated Ruby ever since. It could be anything. You wouldn’t keep responding to stuff you don’t care about at some level.
  - bmacho 2y ago
    Equating caring and wanting it to be better was a mistake on my part. It made my comment not true, and it made you worked-up. Sorry for that. All in all, I don't think that other forms of caring apply either. I think that parroting "Ruby is dead" doesn't mean that they care about Ruby, it's just a thing people like to parrot, without the meaning realizing in their heads. A form of bonding, a form of distraction, a form of opening to a social interaction, a form of self-reassurance etc. It is lot of things, and caring about Ruby at all is usually not among those (IMO).

jstummbillig 2y ago

Ruby, specially with Rails, is particularly suited for AI coding, because of how mature it is and convention over configuration: Most of the important stuff is up to date in the model, and the entire thing comes with a fairy comprehensive set of ideas of how to to be used cohesively to built entire apps.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]