9 ms·

Is Ruby Dying?

91 points by jonaldomo 13y ago

lowglow 13y ago
no.
- mattkrea 13y ago
  lol. Agreed. I'm not a fan and sometimes wish it would but enough people are using it successfully to make it pretty evident that it is not going anywhere anytime soon.
polysics 13y ago
Is it that day of the week again? I would like to also point out the title of the post is misleading, as the findings are exactly the opposite.
- nathos 13y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines
  - sjtgraham 13y ago
    Citing this is such a knackered HN cliché it should mean an instant hell-banning.
    - Confusion 13y ago
      Complaining about a "knackered HN cliché" is itself a knackered HN cliché. Recurse.
    - evilduck 13y ago
      Shouldn't submitting things that fit Betteridge's Law should get you banned instead? Why ban the symptoms?
      - sjtgraham 13y ago
        My comment was tongue in cheek, but there is no way one would realise that just by reading it. I don't really think people should be hell-banned for it, being down-voted into oblivion would suffice :)
jerf 13y ago
You just may not be used to Ruby not having the exciting fire of initial hype. That is dead. But that's good. Languages can't live like that forever. Sooner or later they need to stop the wild experimenting, find some best practices and things that work, and settle down and ram home the things that work. Ruby has entered final maturity. It will be in that phase until such time as it really does die, which could well be 10-15 years. Or more, though, honestly, I doubt that in 2028 we'll be considering Ruby anything more than legacy code... that's not because of Ruby itself, but rather the language category it is in. I expect we'll be looking at Python and Perl the same way. Oh, and kudos for running numbers before simply writing the "Ruby is dying!" blog post!
- polysics 13y ago
  What do you reckon could not be legacy code in 15 years? C family, Java, maybe Erlang?
  - pionar 13y ago
    I think what jerf means is that, being mostly used as a scripting and web language, it's easy to create legacy code in it. Remember ColdFusion? PHP 3? However, more to your point, there's legacy C and Java code, but that's because those languages have evolved heavily in their time, so late 90s Java looks little like modern Java, and techniques used in C in the 80s would get you laughed at today. Hell, even in my main language of work, C#, the difference between most code just 4 or 5 years ago and "modern" C# is vast.
    - danso 13y ago
      That's pretty fascinating...I studied C in college and didn't hate it (in fact, I'd like to go back to C some day)...but my perception since has been that not much has changed because not much needs to change. I'd love to see a paper or article looking at innovations or change in practices in these older languages.
  - delluminatus 13y ago
    Not the OP, but I would expect to see still widely used: * Python - As a programming language for scientists and researchers, replacing Matlab and kin. * Go or Rust - A well-designed, modern language, easier to use than C++ but almost as fast, for enterprise applications or video games. Not sure about Google, but I hope Mozilla will still be around in 10 years. * Lua? - Not sure about this one... but it fills a niche -- extremely compact scripting language. * C - still used in system-level programming * C# - C# is replacing Java as the OO language of choice for big enterprise systems.
mraj 13y ago
Wait? What????
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
jhardcastle 13y ago
A better title would have be, "Is Ruby Dying? Getting The Data." As others have pointed out, the data suggests no, it is not.
- hobs 13y ago
  But then it wouldnt be linkbait!
- regularfry 13y ago
  Betteridge's Law Applies.
- diminoten 13y ago
  I was taught that if the title of an article or story asks a question, the answer is almost always, "No."
idoescompooters 13y ago
I know Ruby on Rails isn't!
danso 13y ago
Ugh...must not take Lord's name in vain. 14 points in almost as many minutes? Is it so easy to get to the top of HackerNews on a holiday with such a loaded question? I can't imagine how many points the OP would've gotten if the title was "Is Ruby Dying Faster than MongoDB?" That said, as a pro-Rubyist...well, I don't find much comfort in the OP's spurious assumptions about what the data can show. However, for those who think Ruby's time is limited or otherwise hate the language (or more specifically, Rails)...what do you think will take its place? Ruby seems popular because of its readable syntax...which is also a factor in its relatively slow performance...do you see an even more human friendly (and inefficient) language taking its place? Or do you think such a niche need not be filled? That Ruby is so great for DSLs...I would hope that it can stay in that function as one of the better glue languages we have.
- bulte-rs 13y ago
  Cannot agree more with you on that last comment. I personally think - and hope, as a full-time Ruby dev at this moment - that Ruby will "recide" (big quotes here) to a more "humble" spot as a glue language; i.e. Perl's spot 10-15 years ago. Not a bad spot to be in if I may say so.
- weatherlight 13y ago
  Ruby IS dying faster than MongoDB! Evidence to prove it! http://bit.ly/1c9vo1S http://bit.ly/1c9vo1S
  - deviltry 13y ago
    Well with evidence like that Ruby is pretty much dead in the water. Happy holidays.
Sanddancer 13y ago
First off, popularity of a language shouldn't be as important as you seem to make it in starting a project. Finding the right tool for the job should be much much more important, new kid in town be damned. Second off, number of package releases doesn't tell much about maturity of packages, developer involvement, or anything. Ruby's a mature language. It's quite feasible, and arguably desirable, for package releases to slow down in time. Styles have been developed, the urgency for new features to be rolled in Right Now is lessened, and the need for components that doesn't break on upgrades becomes more and more important. Yes, the novelty is gone. That isn't a bad thing. You know Ruby's strengths and weaknesses, you know how to use it, you know how not to use it. Jumping to a new language just because of all the jibber-jabber is not a practical thing at all.
- Glyptodon 13y ago
  For all that, the more popular a language is the more packages are available and the easier it is to avoid reinventing the wheel and save time and effort. Even the wrong tool for the job is a nice choice if someone's already done the work of making a square peg fit a round hole for you.
  - davidw 13y ago
    > the more popular a language is the more packages are available And more people to hire, or to hire you, as well as books, mailing lists and so on. Economists call this "positive network externalities", where the value of something increases with the number of people utilizing it.
- Touche 13y ago
  > Finding the right tool for the job should be much much more important That's the most overstated claim in programming. LESS is the "right tool for the job" when the job is styling web pages. Ruby is a general purpose programming language, the jobs it is good for is everything not covered by DSLs like LESS, the same as all other general purpose languages.
  - spellboots 13y ago
mess 13y ago
Google trends: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=python%20programming%2C%20ruby%20programming&cmpt=q http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=python%20programming%...
- Glyptodon 13y ago
  With javascript: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=python%20programming%2C%20ruby%20programming%2C%20javascript%20programming&cmpt=q http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=python%20programming%...
  - Encosia 13y ago
    With node: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=python%20programming%2C%20ruby%20programming%2C%20javascript%20programming%2C%20nodejs&cmpt=q http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=python%20programming%...
    - stonesixone 13y ago
      I don't think it's comparable to compare the 1-word "nodejs" with the 2-word "xxx programming" phrases.
      - monocle 13y ago
        sans "programming" http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=python%2C%20ruby%2C%20javascript%2C%20nodejs&cmpt=q http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=python%2C%20ruby%2C%2...
- dnc 13y ago
  They are roughly at the same level of google trend popularity if you use just language names (w/o 'programming'): http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=python,ruby&cmpt=q http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=python,ruby&cmpt=q EDIT: This one is maybe more accurate (w/ 'programming' as selected category) and it shows that interest is roughly the same on average: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#cat=0-5-31&q=python,+ruby&cmpt=q http://www.google.com/trends/explore#cat=0-5-31&q=python,+ru...
Glyptodon 13y ago
I didn't start using Ruby (or Rails) until this year. The language is nice and makes my top 3 language list. That said, I find both Python/Django and Node.js both more productive than Rails for quickly building API-driven web-apps. More so this has to do with Rails, which has a number of warts and a tendency to require excessive configuration for all its pretty much patently false 'convention over configuration' spiels, than it does with Ruby. If there's a problem with Ruby, it's the inseparability of it and Rails. As things like node make using non-JS languages server side less appealing, use of Rails will decline, making Ruby decline. The main reason this hasn't happened is that there's not a standard groupthink-do-it-all toolkit for building things with node yet. And even when it does happen it will take years and years to go away. Just look at PHP. I'm going to go ahead and say it: Ruby will be the new PHP... And yes, I think it's fair to assume that Ruby usage is vast majority tied to Rails.
- sanderjd 13y ago
  What is the criteria for being "the new PHP"? Do you mean that it will be used for the same kinds of projects as PHP is currently used for, or by the same types of developers or ...?
- amerika_blog 13y ago
  > Ruby will be the new PHP It's already the new PHP. If someone starts as a nerd, they gravitate toward other languages (Go, Perl, Python); if they're an art student, it's Ruby. I'm not a hipster, but I develop all my web pages in 6502 assembly.
- riffraff 13y ago
  > patently false 'convention over configuration' spiels such as ? Rails has plenty of warts but models still live in /app/models, classes are named after tables and all CRUD routes are defined with a single two-token line. You are probably forgetting to consider what the world was like before this.
charlysisto 13y ago
my question : is ruby trying to get on pair with python regarding machine learning ?
- chmartin 13y ago
  not even close. even lua is way ahead of ruby in machine learning !!!
maxehmookau 13y ago
Probably not.
thomasfedb 13y ago
Ruby is only dying in the sense that C is dead. It's not that exciting, but instead is widely used, including by companies. Additionally, I doubt gem releases correlate with language 'vitality'. Fewer releases may simply indicate library stability.
- mitchty 13y ago
  Too true, I'm writing more C lately than ruby. Then again I'm not a rails fan and I need to interface with ioctls more than oauth or whatever. So C fits much better in my domain space. That and command line apps in ruby, well there like perl with cpan modules, sheer pain to manage across systems. Versus static link in archive files and make a package.
jhawk28 13y ago
Ruby is maturing, not dying. It has lost much of its fadish hype.
stiff 13y ago
It is surely dying among those folks who only build one page apps and post them to blogs...
jhspaybar 13y ago
Developer discovers nodejs, drinks kool-aid, assumes other languages are dead or dying. News at 10.
- romanovcode 13y ago
  So true, I was expecting to see Node code in this article even without reading it and can tell already that your comment is the whole tl;dr story of this post. After Node will stop being popular and "hip" author will probably make a new post saying "Is Node Dying?".
- regularfry 13y ago
  ...and then checks it with numbers.
amerika_blog 13y ago
Some things are eternal because they're useful in just about every situation. Other things are trends. C'est la vie.
alisnic 13y ago
after looking at the node code in the article, no.
dham 13y ago
NodeJS, been there done that. Even with generators it makes doing task synchronously a royal pain(have you ever tried to write sql update code with transactions?). Until something comes a long to replace Ruby(https://github.com/mirah/mirah https://github.com/mirah/mirah looks promising), I'll still use it. Ruby is a great scripting language, and it has one of the best(if not the best), web frameworks out there. I definitely think MRI will die, and Ruby will live on in the JVM. I've been really impressed with JRuby and the advances they have made on that project. Plus you also have projects like RubyMotion and the promising Opal(Ruby to JS).
- pswenson 13y ago
  Mirah has almost zero usage, and it seems very little development is going on there. I'm on the Mirah google group and there have been 5 posts since October. I love the idea, but it seems few are interested....
  - dham 13y ago
    Exactly. That proves my point. There are no Ruby like languages ready to replace Ruby right now.
tosseraccount 13y ago
Netcraft needs to confirm this, first.
mortyseinfeld 13y ago
No, but BSD is.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
virtualwhys 13y ago
TIOBE index for December 2013 says otherwise: http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.... Ruby dropped 3 spots from this time last year (currently #13); if it is dying, it's dying slowly. For my work on the JVM, Scala in comparison is way down at spot #31; Groovy #47, and Clojure doesn't even break the top 50. Meanwhile F# is kicking some serious azz, soaring 27 spots in a single year to #20, impressive. Ruby should be just fine for the next several years, assume will drop down into the 20s as the static typing + FP movement takes root in the enterprise. 2014 should be a fun year for the JVM: Java 8, Scala 2.11, a possible Kotlin release, and whatever Groovy and Clojure have planned.
- dham 13y ago
  I used to look at the TIOBE index all the time, until I saw Visual Basic .NET jump a bunch of spots this year. I then started to question either TIOBE index or the people that are using Visual Basic.NET
  - kamaal 13y ago
    Not sure what to say about TIOBE. It bases its results on search engine trends. They can't really tell the difference between Ruby(The stone) and Ruby(The language). Or Python(The snake) and Python(The language).
- mountaineer 13y ago
  Ruby is still holding its own in he HN hiring trends too[1] [1] http://www.ryan-williams.net/hacker-news-hiring-trends/2013/december.html http://www.ryan-williams.net/hacker-news-hiring-trends/2013/...
- steveklabnik 13y ago
  TIOBE results for Ruby won't be the same just quite yet, because December 25 is the traditional Ruby release date. Ruby will get a lot of press over the next week that's still in December, but wouldn't be counted yet.
- vorg 13y ago
kailuowang 13y ago
> What do you guys think? Is Ruby dying? Did you once use Ruby and have now started to use something else? I was using Ruby as my main language for 3 years before I switched to first Coffeescript and then Scala now. Personally I prefer the simplicity (a function is a function) of Coffeescript and the richness (so many things to fool around) of Scala over Ruby. The popularity of languages don't die over the course of a couple of years. Projects with legacy code rely on them and maintenance of their libraries. And legacy code is very very hard to kill. If the interest is in finding out the trend of the "favorability" of a language, it might be more accurate to survey how many green field software products(not libraries, which could be driven by the need of improving some legacy code) are choosing it. Unfortunately, such survey is more expensive to perform, and might be close to impossible to perform retrospectively to understand the trend. Given the fact that the "popularity" of a language isn't that important, the favorability is probably even less, such survey is probably hard to justify.
rubiquity 13y ago
Ruby isn't dead. It's stabilizing now that all of the language hipsters have moved onto Go/Node.js/Scala/Clojure to recreate a bunch of mini Web libraries to try and make names for themselves in the new languages. Ruby's best days are still far away.
blt 13y ago
The author must be pretty wet behind the ears if they think a blog audience will want to read huge blocks of mundane javascript code with console logging and error handling.
swordfish0321 13y ago
Pure Hacker News bait.
Mc_Big_G 13y ago
As always, the answer to posts with a question as the title, is no.
nikoma 13y ago
I have been working with Ruby and RoR for a few years now after using C# and Java. I now can put together web apps or APIs in hours vs days and integrate it with about anything out there from other APIs, using gems wrapping them or other gems for integration like redis, rabbitmq etc you name it. I have never ran into issues of incompatible gems I could not fix myself in a short period of time. It's incredible productive and reasonable fast. I am dealing with data reads/writes in the ten thousands of records per second and when something smells like bottleneck you still can throw in a native extension or use jruby and call java libs. If you are building all you do with boilerplate activerecord or other ORMS you just don't use it right. Flexibly is key. I think every challenge has it's best tools. I tried grails, play, spring mvc and other frameworks but promise that I can beat every of these frameworks in terms of development speed. Ruby is far from being dead and has a huge community. Having that said its always good to also stay up to date with other tools. For many deploying rails apps is a pain so why not throwing in warbler and deploy a war file to an app server...seconds later, boom, online and scalable. I could go on for hours:) I am a fan and so are our shareholders.
ibstudios 13y ago
If there is one person working on the next version of ruby it is not dead. jruby and rubinius close the performance gaps. (This is an arguement for only knowing one language.)
chmartin 13y ago
Ruby is like Disco. It was fun for a while, but now it is old news. I was forced to learn Ruby while at Aardvark, as well as the Rails and the Agile process. It was true today as it was then; Ruby, Rails, and Agile are absolutely useless for real data science and machine learning, and this is what companies need to move forward. Indeed, to bring machine learning tech to the Aardvark team, I had to fight tooth and nail against the Rails consultants and the Agile process guys. Ruby is a useful gateway language for learning other modern scripting languages such as python, lua, and scala I agree that Ruby is now legacy technology. Let me be clear; I use it all the time. It is useful to build stable projects based on solid ideas, and I use it for dev ops, for crawling the web, and for making simple DSLs. Chef is very good (compared to, say, Ansible) , and the Bundler deployment system is quite nice. It is easy to build web endpoints in Sinatra, and the Nokogiri gem is a pleasure to work with compared to, say, java JSoup. But Ruby is not moving the needle forward. It does not even have a decent NumPy-like module, which makes it completely useless for modern back end work in data science, machine learning, and the real things companies need to generate revenue Rails is a good example of being overspecialized. They are so good at web programing circa 2007 that the future passed them by. Python. Lua. Scala. Closure. These are the future.
nkcode 13y ago
graph only shows that all smart coders switched to ruby and it is steady updating also most gems in all areas are good enough already
ChiperSoft 13y ago
That's a fifteen year graph, and does appear to depict a decline at the end. I'd like to see this data rescaled to just the last six months (unfortunately his data files are 404ing now). If you want to find out if TV sales are declining, you don't compare against the 1950s.

Is Ruby Dying?

91 points by jonaldomo 13y ago

lowglow 13y ago

no.

mattkrea 13y ago
lol. Agreed. I'm not a fan and sometimes wish it would but enough people are using it successfully to make it pretty evident that it is not going anywhere anytime soon.

polysics 13y ago

Is it that day of the week again? I would like to also point out the title of the post is misleading, as the findings are exactly the opposite.

nathos 13y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines
- sjtgraham 13y ago
  Citing this is such a knackered HN cliché it should mean an instant hell-banning.
  - Confusion 13y ago
    Complaining about a "knackered HN cliché" is itself a knackered HN cliché. Recurse.
  - evilduck 13y ago
    Shouldn't submitting things that fit Betteridge's Law should get you banned instead? Why ban the symptoms?
    - sjtgraham 13y ago
      My comment was tongue in cheek, but there is no way one would realise that just by reading it. I don't really think people should be hell-banned for it, being down-voted into oblivion would suffice :)

jerf 13y ago

You just may not be used to Ruby not having the exciting fire of initial hype. That is dead. But that's good. Languages can't live like that forever. Sooner or later they need to stop the wild experimenting, find some best practices and things that work, and settle down and ram home the things that work. Ruby has entered final maturity. It will be in that phase until such time as it really does die, which could well be 10-15 years. Or more, though, honestly, I doubt that in 2028 we'll be considering Ruby anything more than legacy code... that's not because of Ruby itself, but rather the language category it is in. I expect we'll be looking at Python and Perl the same way. Oh, and kudos for running numbers before simply writing the "Ruby is dying!" blog post!

polysics 13y ago
What do you reckon could not be legacy code in 15 years? C family, Java, maybe Erlang?
- pionar 13y ago
  I think what jerf means is that, being mostly used as a scripting and web language, it's easy to create legacy code in it. Remember ColdFusion? PHP 3? However, more to your point, there's legacy C and Java code, but that's because those languages have evolved heavily in their time, so late 90s Java looks little like modern Java, and techniques used in C in the 80s would get you laughed at today. Hell, even in my main language of work, C#, the difference between most code just 4 or 5 years ago and "modern" C# is vast.
  - danso 13y ago
    That's pretty fascinating...I studied C in college and didn't hate it (in fact, I'd like to go back to C some day)...but my perception since has been that not much has changed because not much needs to change. I'd love to see a paper or article looking at innovations or change in practices in these older languages.
- delluminatus 13y ago
  Not the OP, but I would expect to see still widely used: * Python - As a programming language for scientists and researchers, replacing Matlab and kin. * Go or Rust - A well-designed, modern language, easier to use than C++ but almost as fast, for enterprise applications or video games. Not sure about Google, but I hope Mozilla will still be around in 10 years. * Lua? - Not sure about this one... but it fills a niche -- extremely compact scripting language. * C - still used in system-level programming * C# - C# is replacing Java as the OO language of choice for big enterprise systems.

mraj 13y ago

Wait? What????

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

jhardcastle 13y ago

A better title would have be, "Is Ruby Dying? Getting The Data." As others have pointed out, the data suggests no, it is not.

hobs 13y ago
But then it wouldnt be linkbait!
regularfry 13y ago
Betteridge's Law Applies.
diminoten 13y ago
I was taught that if the title of an article or story asks a question, the answer is almost always, "No."

idoescompooters 13y ago

I know Ruby on Rails isn't!

danso 13y ago

Ugh...must not take Lord's name in vain. 14 points in almost as many minutes? Is it so easy to get to the top of HackerNews on a holiday with such a loaded question? I can't imagine how many points the OP would've gotten if the title was "Is Ruby Dying Faster than MongoDB?" That said, as a pro-Rubyist...well, I don't find much comfort in the OP's spurious assumptions about what the data can show. However, for those who think Ruby's time is limited or otherwise hate the language (or more specifically, Rails)...what do you think will take its place? Ruby seems popular because of its readable syntax...which is also a factor in its relatively slow performance...do you see an even more human friendly (and inefficient) language taking its place? Or do you think such a niche need not be filled? That Ruby is so great for DSLs...I would hope that it can stay in that function as one of the better glue languages we have.

bulte-rs 13y ago
Cannot agree more with you on that last comment. I personally think - and hope, as a full-time Ruby dev at this moment - that Ruby will "recide" (big quotes here) to a more "humble" spot as a glue language; i.e. Perl's spot 10-15 years ago. Not a bad spot to be in if I may say so.
weatherlight 13y ago
Ruby IS dying faster than MongoDB! Evidence to prove it! http://bit.ly/1c9vo1S http://bit.ly/1c9vo1S
- deviltry 13y ago
  Well with evidence like that Ruby is pretty much dead in the water. Happy holidays.

Sanddancer 13y ago

First off, popularity of a language shouldn't be as important as you seem to make it in starting a project. Finding the right tool for the job should be much much more important, new kid in town be damned. Second off, number of package releases doesn't tell much about maturity of packages, developer involvement, or anything. Ruby's a mature language. It's quite feasible, and arguably desirable, for package releases to slow down in time. Styles have been developed, the urgency for new features to be rolled in Right Now is lessened, and the need for components that doesn't break on upgrades becomes more and more important. Yes, the novelty is gone. That isn't a bad thing. You know Ruby's strengths and weaknesses, you know how to use it, you know how not to use it. Jumping to a new language just because of all the jibber-jabber is not a practical thing at all.

Glyptodon 13y ago
For all that, the more popular a language is the more packages are available and the easier it is to avoid reinventing the wheel and save time and effort. Even the wrong tool for the job is a nice choice if someone's already done the work of making a square peg fit a round hole for you.
- davidw 13y ago
  > the more popular a language is the more packages are available And more people to hire, or to hire you, as well as books, mailing lists and so on. Economists call this "positive network externalities", where the value of something increases with the number of people utilizing it.
Touche 13y ago
> Finding the right tool for the job should be much much more important That's the most overstated claim in programming. LESS is the "right tool for the job" when the job is styling web pages. Ruby is a general purpose programming language, the jobs it is good for is everything not covered by DSLs like LESS, the same as all other general purpose languages.
- spellboots 13y ago

mess 13y ago

Google trends: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=python%20programming%2C%20ruby%20programming&cmpt=q http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=python%20programming%...

Glyptodon 13y ago
With javascript: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=python%20programming%2C%20ruby%20programming%2C%20javascript%20programming&cmpt=q http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=python%20programming%...
- Encosia 13y ago
  With node: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=python%20programming%2C%20ruby%20programming%2C%20javascript%20programming%2C%20nodejs&cmpt=q http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=python%20programming%...
  - stonesixone 13y ago
    I don't think it's comparable to compare the 1-word "nodejs" with the 2-word "xxx programming" phrases.
    - monocle 13y ago
      sans "programming" http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=python%2C%20ruby%2C%20javascript%2C%20nodejs&cmpt=q http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=python%2C%20ruby%2C%2...
dnc 13y ago
They are roughly at the same level of google trend popularity if you use just language names (w/o 'programming'): http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=python,ruby&cmpt=q http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=python,ruby&cmpt=q EDIT: This one is maybe more accurate (w/ 'programming' as selected category) and it shows that interest is roughly the same on average: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#cat=0-5-31&q=python,+ruby&cmpt=q http://www.google.com/trends/explore#cat=0-5-31&q=python,+ru...

Glyptodon 13y ago

I didn't start using Ruby (or Rails) until this year. The language is nice and makes my top 3 language list. That said, I find both Python/Django and Node.js both more productive than Rails for quickly building API-driven web-apps. More so this has to do with Rails, which has a number of warts and a tendency to require excessive configuration for all its pretty much patently false 'convention over configuration' spiels, than it does with Ruby. If there's a problem with Ruby, it's the inseparability of it and Rails. As things like node make using non-JS languages server side less appealing, use of Rails will decline, making Ruby decline. The main reason this hasn't happened is that there's not a standard groupthink-do-it-all toolkit for building things with node yet. And even when it does happen it will take years and years to go away. Just look at PHP. I'm going to go ahead and say it: Ruby will be the new PHP... And yes, I think it's fair to assume that Ruby usage is vast majority tied to Rails.

sanderjd 13y ago
What is the criteria for being "the new PHP"? Do you mean that it will be used for the same kinds of projects as PHP is currently used for, or by the same types of developers or ...?
amerika_blog 13y ago
> Ruby will be the new PHP It's already the new PHP. If someone starts as a nerd, they gravitate toward other languages (Go, Perl, Python); if they're an art student, it's Ruby. I'm not a hipster, but I develop all my web pages in 6502 assembly.
riffraff 13y ago
> patently false 'convention over configuration' spiels such as ? Rails has plenty of warts but models still live in /app/models, classes are named after tables and all CRUD routes are defined with a single two-token line. You are probably forgetting to consider what the world was like before this.

charlysisto 13y ago

my question : is ruby trying to get on pair with python regarding machine learning ?

chmartin 13y ago
not even close. even lua is way ahead of ruby in machine learning !!!

maxehmookau 13y ago

Probably not.

thomasfedb 13y ago

Ruby is only dying in the sense that C is dead. It's not that exciting, but instead is widely used, including by companies. Additionally, I doubt gem releases correlate with language 'vitality'. Fewer releases may simply indicate library stability.

mitchty 13y ago
Too true, I'm writing more C lately than ruby. Then again I'm not a rails fan and I need to interface with ioctls more than oauth or whatever. So C fits much better in my domain space. That and command line apps in ruby, well there like perl with cpan modules, sheer pain to manage across systems. Versus static link in archive files and make a package.

jhawk28 13y ago

Ruby is maturing, not dying. It has lost much of its fadish hype.

stiff 13y ago

It is surely dying among those folks who only build one page apps and post them to blogs...

jhspaybar 13y ago

Developer discovers nodejs, drinks kool-aid, assumes other languages are dead or dying. News at 10.

romanovcode 13y ago
So true, I was expecting to see Node code in this article even without reading it and can tell already that your comment is the whole tl;dr story of this post. After Node will stop being popular and "hip" author will probably make a new post saying "Is Node Dying?".
regularfry 13y ago
...and then checks it with numbers.

amerika_blog 13y ago

Some things are eternal because they're useful in just about every situation. Other things are trends. C'est la vie.

alisnic 13y ago

after looking at the node code in the article, no.

dham 13y ago

NodeJS, been there done that. Even with generators it makes doing task synchronously a royal pain(have you ever tried to write sql update code with transactions?). Until something comes a long to replace Ruby(https://github.com/mirah/mirah https://github.com/mirah/mirah looks promising), I'll still use it. Ruby is a great scripting language, and it has one of the best(if not the best), web frameworks out there. I definitely think MRI will die, and Ruby will live on in the JVM. I've been really impressed with JRuby and the advances they have made on that project. Plus you also have projects like RubyMotion and the promising Opal(Ruby to JS).

pswenson 13y ago
Mirah has almost zero usage, and it seems very little development is going on there. I'm on the Mirah google group and there have been 5 posts since October. I love the idea, but it seems few are interested....
- dham 13y ago
  Exactly. That proves my point. There are no Ruby like languages ready to replace Ruby right now.

tosseraccount 13y ago

Netcraft needs to confirm this, first.

mortyseinfeld 13y ago

No, but BSD is.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

virtualwhys 13y ago

TIOBE index for December 2013 says otherwise: http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.... Ruby dropped 3 spots from this time last year (currently #13); if it is dying, it's dying slowly. For my work on the JVM, Scala in comparison is way down at spot #31; Groovy #47, and Clojure doesn't even break the top 50. Meanwhile F# is kicking some serious azz, soaring 27 spots in a single year to #20, impressive. Ruby should be just fine for the next several years, assume will drop down into the 20s as the static typing + FP movement takes root in the enterprise. 2014 should be a fun year for the JVM: Java 8, Scala 2.11, a possible Kotlin release, and whatever Groovy and Clojure have planned.

dham 13y ago
I used to look at the TIOBE index all the time, until I saw Visual Basic .NET jump a bunch of spots this year. I then started to question either TIOBE index or the people that are using Visual Basic.NET
- kamaal 13y ago
  Not sure what to say about TIOBE. It bases its results on search engine trends. They can't really tell the difference between Ruby(The stone) and Ruby(The language). Or Python(The snake) and Python(The language).
mountaineer 13y ago
Ruby is still holding its own in he HN hiring trends too[1] [1] http://www.ryan-williams.net/hacker-news-hiring-trends/2013/december.html http://www.ryan-williams.net/hacker-news-hiring-trends/2013/...
steveklabnik 13y ago
TIOBE results for Ruby won't be the same just quite yet, because December 25 is the traditional Ruby release date. Ruby will get a lot of press over the next week that's still in December, but wouldn't be counted yet.
vorg 13y ago

kailuowang 13y ago

> What do you guys think? Is Ruby dying? Did you once use Ruby and have now started to use something else? I was using Ruby as my main language for 3 years before I switched to first Coffeescript and then Scala now. Personally I prefer the simplicity (a function is a function) of Coffeescript and the richness (so many things to fool around) of Scala over Ruby. The popularity of languages don't die over the course of a couple of years. Projects with legacy code rely on them and maintenance of their libraries. And legacy code is very very hard to kill. If the interest is in finding out the trend of the "favorability" of a language, it might be more accurate to survey how many green field software products(not libraries, which could be driven by the need of improving some legacy code) are choosing it. Unfortunately, such survey is more expensive to perform, and might be close to impossible to perform retrospectively to understand the trend. Given the fact that the "popularity" of a language isn't that important, the favorability is probably even less, such survey is probably hard to justify.

rubiquity 13y ago

Ruby isn't dead. It's stabilizing now that all of the language hipsters have moved onto Go/Node.js/Scala/Clojure to recreate a bunch of mini Web libraries to try and make names for themselves in the new languages. Ruby's best days are still far away.

blt 13y ago

The author must be pretty wet behind the ears if they think a blog audience will want to read huge blocks of mundane javascript code with console logging and error handling.

swordfish0321 13y ago

Pure Hacker News bait.

Mc_Big_G 13y ago

As always, the answer to posts with a question as the title, is no.

nikoma 13y ago

I have been working with Ruby and RoR for a few years now after using C# and Java. I now can put together web apps or APIs in hours vs days and integrate it with about anything out there from other APIs, using gems wrapping them or other gems for integration like redis, rabbitmq etc you name it. I have never ran into issues of incompatible gems I could not fix myself in a short period of time. It's incredible productive and reasonable fast. I am dealing with data reads/writes in the ten thousands of records per second and when something smells like bottleneck you still can throw in a native extension or use jruby and call java libs. If you are building all you do with boilerplate activerecord or other ORMS you just don't use it right. Flexibly is key. I think every challenge has it's best tools. I tried grails, play, spring mvc and other frameworks but promise that I can beat every of these frameworks in terms of development speed. Ruby is far from being dead and has a huge community. Having that said its always good to also stay up to date with other tools. For many deploying rails apps is a pain so why not throwing in warbler and deploy a war file to an app server...seconds later, boom, online and scalable. I could go on for hours:) I am a fan and so are our shareholders.

ibstudios 13y ago

If there is one person working on the next version of ruby it is not dead. jruby and rubinius close the performance gaps. (This is an arguement for only knowing one language.)

chmartin 13y ago

Ruby is like Disco. It was fun for a while, but now it is old news. I was forced to learn Ruby while at Aardvark, as well as the Rails and the Agile process. It was true today as it was then; Ruby, Rails, and Agile are absolutely useless for real data science and machine learning, and this is what companies need to move forward. Indeed, to bring machine learning tech to the Aardvark team, I had to fight tooth and nail against the Rails consultants and the Agile process guys. Ruby is a useful gateway language for learning other modern scripting languages such as python, lua, and scala I agree that Ruby is now legacy technology. Let me be clear; I use it all the time. It is useful to build stable projects based on solid ideas, and I use it for dev ops, for crawling the web, and for making simple DSLs. Chef is very good (compared to, say, Ansible) , and the Bundler deployment system is quite nice. It is easy to build web endpoints in Sinatra, and the Nokogiri gem is a pleasure to work with compared to, say, java JSoup. But Ruby is not moving the needle forward. It does not even have a decent NumPy-like module, which makes it completely useless for modern back end work in data science, machine learning, and the real things companies need to generate revenue Rails is a good example of being overspecialized. They are so good at web programing circa 2007 that the future passed them by. Python. Lua. Scala. Closure. These are the future.

nkcode 13y ago

graph only shows that all smart coders switched to ruby and it is steady updating also most gems in all areas are good enough already

ChiperSoft 13y ago

That's a fifteen year graph, and does appear to depict a decline at the end. I'd like to see this data rescaled to just the last six months (unfortunately his data files are 404ing now). If you want to find out if TV sales are declining, you don't compare against the 1950s.