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How has it been “eating itself alive”?

leakycap 1y ago
Ruby promised programmer happiness and delivered programmer warfare. Predating the current hostile takeover: •••the vitriol directed at early critics like Zed Shaw •••mysterious departure of _why the lucky stiff •••the contentious Code of Conduct •••DHH •••uneasy truce after the toxic tribalism of the Rails vs. Merb There's more, but the linked article can send you down more interesting rabbit holes than more bullets on my list
- bradgessler 1y ago
  There’s been a ton of that, yes, but for most people who are building applications and websites with Ruby, it’s been stable, productive, and prosperous.
  - leakycap 1y ago
    > How has it been “eating itself alive”? > There's been a ton of that, yes... What are you saying - because some people got rich off Ruby, it's OK that those things happened? Clearly not - Ruby will be lucky to have a shadow of the community left after this.
    - bradgessler 1y ago
      No, I'm saying there's a lot of people who won't even know this happened. Fewer will know that it happened, but they'll view it as a scenario where the ends justify the means. I'm on the record saying RC did a poor job rolling out these changes and treated the maintainers poorly. There will be a lot of amazing Rubyists that leave, which is terrible, but it won't be "the shadow of a community left" because there's way too many people who depend on it to feed their families.
      - leakycap 1y ago
        > No, I'm saying there's a lot of people who won't even know this happened. In the world of "I'm sorry to that man" this seems like a given about literally everything. Not knowing something happened is called being uninformed, and it doesn't change things or make the person right just because they don't know about something that occurred. > There will be a lot of amazing Rubyists that leave We agree. Listen, WebObjects still has a somewhat active community. Ruby's community won't be helped by recent events, but recent events happened because the Ruby community has been backstabby for a long time and no one has stopped it because there's too much money to be made in the meantime to care about things like people.
    - chao- 1y ago
      >Ruby will be lucky to have a shadow of the community left after this. Maybe? This feels like an extreme statement with too much certainty at this point.
  - 827a 1y ago
    Ruby's status of having, like, two companies that are big and known to use Ruby (Shopify and 37Signals) is the reason why this was allowed to happen (three if you include Github, but my understanding is that its used less-and-less there). I have doubts that anyone could name another company or group most people have heard of using Ruby in any significant capacity. Its a dying language that does not have the legs to survive this drama.
    - WA9ACE 1y ago
      Stripe, AirBnB, Instacart, Zendesk, Kickstarter, Mastodon, and if I remember right Coinbase was originally Rails as well.
      - gleenn 1y ago
        Twitter also
        mvdtnz 1y ago
        Twitter famously eliminated as much ruby as practical from their codebase.
        pessimizer 1y ago
        Had to kill the failwhale.
      - 827a 1y ago
        Many if not all of these companies are, to my knowledge, companies like Github which might still have some legacy parts of their system running Ruby, but aren't building significant new code in Ruby; and if they do have Ruby, are trying to reduce its prevalence in their system.
        3by7 1y ago
        You're badly misinformed (or are intentionally spreading misinformation).
- insane_dreamer 1y ago
  _why's departure had nothing to do with the Ruby community, as far as we know (unless some new info has come to light recently) Zed Shaw, sure, but that's a single person (though a very vocal one; I always liked his work, but he was pretty outspoken and that got under people's skin) DHH - yes, opinionated to a fault and outspoken like ZS, prone to create division, but that was always more about Rails than Ruby (this is not a comment on DHH recently, which I know nothing about; I stopped being active in Ruby/Rails community over a dozen years ago). Rails vs Merb - again I think you're conflating the Rails community with the Ruby community
  - leakycap 1y ago
    If you don't realize the overlap in the Rails and Ruby on Rails community, I'm not sure what corner of the Ruby world you've been hiding in. Someone can shush away any behavior if they want, like you have done. Feel free to provide an alternate history or context for the current Ruby community upheaval if you want, but just dismissing the problems of the past doesn't help anyone.
    - insane_dreamer 1y ago
      I'm not dismissing the problems of the past. I just don't think they were as big problems as you make them out to be. It's not like I wasn't around or unaware, I just didn't let it bother me - and was happy with how things were developing despite some arguments around the fringes as in any community. > I'm not sure what corner of the Ruby world you've been hiding in. I did say that I haven't been involved for the past dozen years. Before that I was definitely there when Rails burst onto the Ruby scene and its early years. I realize the overlap but they were still pretty distinct -- though maybe that's changed in the past decade.
      - leakycap 1y ago
        "it didn't affect me so I didn't care" is a common and valid feeling up until you are aware of what is happening I developed with Ruby from the beginning and loved Ruby on Rails for many reasons. The community's backstabbing nature and callousness toward people who put a lot of work in was not something I ever admired and it's led us here.
- jamesgeck0 1y ago
  DHH aside, most of this drama was over a decade ago.
  - leakycap 1y ago
    "Actually, the Ruby community ripped itself apart a decade ago and has never changed and still suffering from the consequences except with the recent thing with the founder" is not a strong argument
    - tyre 1y ago
      No, but listing things that happened over the course of over a decade, some of which are well resolved and others (like why’s leaving) are questionable how they’re an indication of drama. He left public programming, including Scratch, entirely.
      - leakycap 1y ago
        > things that happened over the course of over a decade Bad things happening to contributors year after year for a decade shows a toxic community that doesn't change even over a long period of time The latest harm is just the continuation of what has been happening since the beginning > some of which are well resolved Resolved? Decisions were made, but the tensions were never resolved and people were hurt. > He left public programming [...] entirely. Yeah. That's what happens when someone is destroyed after years of their hard work is treated like nothing.
  - sanderjd 1y ago
    Ha yep. I remember a lot of this drama from my early days working with rails. But my impression is that none of this mattered and has long been water under the bridge. (I didn't know until reading about this current episode that there is new DHH drama.)
- foysavas 1y ago
  I wrote a book on Merb and was an active contributor. Before that I had developed several apps with Rails. That said, the Rails vs Merb era was mostly good natured competition and I don't view the Rails vs Merb period as itself having been problematic. Merb devs believed we could make app development both simple to start (as a single file like Sinatra) and easy to evolve (into a modular codebase with Rails-like conventions). Existing outside of the Rails ecosystem allowed Merb to pursue that distinct vision. The Merge between Rails and Merb, accreted many of Merb's modular architectural enhancements to Rails, but sadly deprecated the overall Merb vision. To me that was a shame, but I still wouldn't describe any of it as toxic.
  - leakycap 1y ago
    > I wrote a book on Merb and was an active contributor. It might be a situation where you see it differently because you were involved or benefiting from the way things unfolded > That said, the Rails vs Merb era was mostly good natured competition [...] wouldn't describe any of it as toxic Competition can be healthy, Rails vs Merb was anything but. Quotes from Yehuda himself: ••• "I was just so blinded by tribalism that I never even bothered to check how fundamental the disagreements really were." ••• "waging an all-out war against Ruby on Rails from inside of a company that makes its money selling Ruby on Rails deployment is a pretty bad life strategy" ••• "It's so easy for our brains to turn disagreements about priorities into value conflicts. It takes a lot of effort to see past that mistake." https://yehudakatz.com/2020/02/19/together-the-merb-story/ https://yehudakatz.com/2020/02/19/together-the-merb-story/
    - foysavas 1y ago
      Engine Yard's management took several strategic missteps over the years. One of them was stifling Merb. The quotes from Yehuda describe his difficulty in making the best of a forced merger. Ezra's vision for Merb and DHH's vision for Rails were distinct. Both warranted development. Over time, I assume they would have collectively strengthened the Ruby community. It was a mistake for Engine Yard's management to have instead framed it as zero sum and forced a merger.
- Trasmatta 1y ago
  > the vitriol directed at early critics like Zed Shaw Zed was also a source of vitriol and toxicity, not just a target

Ruby promised programmer happiness and delivered programmer warfare. Predating the current hostile takeover: •••the vitriol directed at early critics like Zed Shaw •••mysterious departure of _why the lucky stiff •••the contentious Code of Conduct •••DHH •••uneasy truce after the toxic tribalism of the Rails vs. Merb There's more, but the linked article can send you down more interesting rabbit holes than more bullets on my list

bradgessler 1y ago
There’s been a ton of that, yes, but for most people who are building applications and websites with Ruby, it’s been stable, productive, and prosperous.
- leakycap 1y ago
  > How has it been “eating itself alive”? > There's been a ton of that, yes... What are you saying - because some people got rich off Ruby, it's OK that those things happened? Clearly not - Ruby will be lucky to have a shadow of the community left after this.
  - bradgessler 1y ago
    No, I'm saying there's a lot of people who won't even know this happened. Fewer will know that it happened, but they'll view it as a scenario where the ends justify the means. I'm on the record saying RC did a poor job rolling out these changes and treated the maintainers poorly. There will be a lot of amazing Rubyists that leave, which is terrible, but it won't be "the shadow of a community left" because there's way too many people who depend on it to feed their families.
    - leakycap 1y ago
      > No, I'm saying there's a lot of people who won't even know this happened. In the world of "I'm sorry to that man" this seems like a given about literally everything. Not knowing something happened is called being uninformed, and it doesn't change things or make the person right just because they don't know about something that occurred. > There will be a lot of amazing Rubyists that leave We agree. Listen, WebObjects still has a somewhat active community. Ruby's community won't be helped by recent events, but recent events happened because the Ruby community has been backstabby for a long time and no one has stopped it because there's too much money to be made in the meantime to care about things like people.
  - chao- 1y ago
    >Ruby will be lucky to have a shadow of the community left after this. Maybe? This feels like an extreme statement with too much certainty at this point.
- 827a 1y ago
  Ruby's status of having, like, two companies that are big and known to use Ruby (Shopify and 37Signals) is the reason why this was allowed to happen (three if you include Github, but my understanding is that its used less-and-less there). I have doubts that anyone could name another company or group most people have heard of using Ruby in any significant capacity. Its a dying language that does not have the legs to survive this drama.
  - WA9ACE 1y ago
    Stripe, AirBnB, Instacart, Zendesk, Kickstarter, Mastodon, and if I remember right Coinbase was originally Rails as well.
    - gleenn 1y ago
      Twitter also
      - mvdtnz 1y ago
        Twitter famously eliminated as much ruby as practical from their codebase.
        pessimizer 1y ago
        Had to kill the failwhale.
    - 827a 1y ago
      Many if not all of these companies are, to my knowledge, companies like Github which might still have some legacy parts of their system running Ruby, but aren't building significant new code in Ruby; and if they do have Ruby, are trying to reduce its prevalence in their system.
      - 3by7 1y ago
        You're badly misinformed (or are intentionally spreading misinformation).
insane_dreamer 1y ago
_why's departure had nothing to do with the Ruby community, as far as we know (unless some new info has come to light recently) Zed Shaw, sure, but that's a single person (though a very vocal one; I always liked his work, but he was pretty outspoken and that got under people's skin) DHH - yes, opinionated to a fault and outspoken like ZS, prone to create division, but that was always more about Rails than Ruby (this is not a comment on DHH recently, which I know nothing about; I stopped being active in Ruby/Rails community over a dozen years ago). Rails vs Merb - again I think you're conflating the Rails community with the Ruby community
- leakycap 1y ago
  If you don't realize the overlap in the Rails and Ruby on Rails community, I'm not sure what corner of the Ruby world you've been hiding in. Someone can shush away any behavior if they want, like you have done. Feel free to provide an alternate history or context for the current Ruby community upheaval if you want, but just dismissing the problems of the past doesn't help anyone.
  - insane_dreamer 1y ago
    I'm not dismissing the problems of the past. I just don't think they were as big problems as you make them out to be. It's not like I wasn't around or unaware, I just didn't let it bother me - and was happy with how things were developing despite some arguments around the fringes as in any community. > I'm not sure what corner of the Ruby world you've been hiding in. I did say that I haven't been involved for the past dozen years. Before that I was definitely there when Rails burst onto the Ruby scene and its early years. I realize the overlap but they were still pretty distinct -- though maybe that's changed in the past decade.
    - leakycap 1y ago
      "it didn't affect me so I didn't care" is a common and valid feeling up until you are aware of what is happening I developed with Ruby from the beginning and loved Ruby on Rails for many reasons. The community's backstabbing nature and callousness toward people who put a lot of work in was not something I ever admired and it's led us here.
jamesgeck0 1y ago
DHH aside, most of this drama was over a decade ago.
- leakycap 1y ago
  "Actually, the Ruby community ripped itself apart a decade ago and has never changed and still suffering from the consequences except with the recent thing with the founder" is not a strong argument
  - tyre 1y ago
    No, but listing things that happened over the course of over a decade, some of which are well resolved and others (like why’s leaving) are questionable how they’re an indication of drama. He left public programming, including Scratch, entirely.
    - leakycap 1y ago
      > things that happened over the course of over a decade Bad things happening to contributors year after year for a decade shows a toxic community that doesn't change even over a long period of time The latest harm is just the continuation of what has been happening since the beginning > some of which are well resolved Resolved? Decisions were made, but the tensions were never resolved and people were hurt. > He left public programming [...] entirely. Yeah. That's what happens when someone is destroyed after years of their hard work is treated like nothing.
- sanderjd 1y ago
  Ha yep. I remember a lot of this drama from my early days working with rails. But my impression is that none of this mattered and has long been water under the bridge. (I didn't know until reading about this current episode that there is new DHH drama.)
foysavas 1y ago
I wrote a book on Merb and was an active contributor. Before that I had developed several apps with Rails. That said, the Rails vs Merb era was mostly good natured competition and I don't view the Rails vs Merb period as itself having been problematic. Merb devs believed we could make app development both simple to start (as a single file like Sinatra) and easy to evolve (into a modular codebase with Rails-like conventions). Existing outside of the Rails ecosystem allowed Merb to pursue that distinct vision. The Merge between Rails and Merb, accreted many of Merb's modular architectural enhancements to Rails, but sadly deprecated the overall Merb vision. To me that was a shame, but I still wouldn't describe any of it as toxic.
- leakycap 1y ago
  > I wrote a book on Merb and was an active contributor. It might be a situation where you see it differently because you were involved or benefiting from the way things unfolded > That said, the Rails vs Merb era was mostly good natured competition [...] wouldn't describe any of it as toxic Competition can be healthy, Rails vs Merb was anything but. Quotes from Yehuda himself: ••• "I was just so blinded by tribalism that I never even bothered to check how fundamental the disagreements really were." ••• "waging an all-out war against Ruby on Rails from inside of a company that makes its money selling Ruby on Rails deployment is a pretty bad life strategy" ••• "It's so easy for our brains to turn disagreements about priorities into value conflicts. It takes a lot of effort to see past that mistake." https://yehudakatz.com/2020/02/19/together-the-merb-story/ https://yehudakatz.com/2020/02/19/together-the-merb-story/
  - foysavas 1y ago
    Engine Yard's management took several strategic missteps over the years. One of them was stifling Merb. The quotes from Yehuda describe his difficulty in making the best of a forced merger. Ezra's vision for Merb and DHH's vision for Rails were distinct. Both warranted development. Over time, I assume they would have collectively strengthened the Ruby community. It was a mistake for Engine Yard's management to have instead framed it as zero sum and forced a merger.
Trasmatta 1y ago
> the vitriol directed at early critics like Zed Shaw Zed was also a source of vitriol and toxicity, not just a target