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This has been my perception too; over the past couple of years we've been inundated with recruitment agencies trying to pass on these Ruby/Rails devs like its t

This has been my perception too; over the past couple of years we've been inundated with recruitment agencies trying to pass on these Ruby/Rails devs like its the new hot shit and all I've ever seen in my experience is spagetti codebases and sloppy work. Node is the same. It used to be PHP devs were this class (we refer to them as "enthusiastic ametuers" but the "brogrammer" name also equally applies; people who are just starting a career in development who dont know they dont know anything, or simply dont care in the case of brogrammers). It's my understanding that the mood is simply that rails/ruby/node is toxic; its the same with what used to be SEO, they've all become UX snake oil salesmen. As a Go dev, I'm crapping it that Go may be the next bandwagon jumped onto :( It kinda makes me glad when I see all those comments complaining about lack of generics!

makeitsuckless 12y ago
If that's the case, then there is still hope for Ruby enthusiasts. PHP has come out the other end, mostly by splitting into separate communities that only have the language in common. The issue with Ruby is that it is so tightly associated with simple architecture of Rails. Nothing wrong with Rails in itself, but for many complex projects that require architectural solutions Rails doesn't support, Rails + inexperienced devs usually results in spaghetti code. Ruby is fine, but RoR is toxic.
- nextweek2 12y ago
  > Ruby is fine, but RoR is toxic. A language without its framework is like a hammer without a nail.
  - busterarm 12y ago
    okay so...Sinatra, Padrino, Lotus?
busterarm 12y ago
So for someone who is working with ruby but technology agnostic and trying to land a gig as a junior dev, what do you suggest? I feel like switching stacks before actually getting work might do more harm than good and at this stage I'm not looking to contract.
- ritchiea 12y ago
  Don't switch stacks. He's expressing an opinion about code from Rails developers which is about as broad as opinions go this side of saying "black people are like X" or "Asians are like Y." On the bright side he does leave the door open that Rails developers could write solid code though most don't in his opinion. The best thing you could do is continue working on Rails but read a variety of opinions on good code in different languages, read Coders at Work and similar texts on coding, and remember not to blindly follow coding trends. Generally keep your code simple and work to find abstractions to fit your domain. I'm not saying anyone here is incorrect in their generalizations of Rails developers. I've obviously never seen the code they are criticizing. But they also aren't providing any useful information. Keep that in mind above all else. There will always be politics and disagreements. You're never going to make everyone happy and it would be a disaster to try to.
  - jalfresi 12y ago
    This is probably the soundest advice and agree wholeheartedly; the market appears to be saturated with inexperienced developers. This means, at somepoint (probably about now actually) there will be a very real need for good/great rails/ruby devs to come in and sort out all this mess. Not everyone will be able to dump and rewrite their projects; some will need tidying and new features added. You could make a killing there is your disciplined (think of Y2K and all the old experienced cobol devs coming out the framework to fix stuff)

makeitsuckless 12y ago

If that's the case, then there is still hope for Ruby enthusiasts. PHP has come out the other end, mostly by splitting into separate communities that only have the language in common. The issue with Ruby is that it is so tightly associated with simple architecture of Rails. Nothing wrong with Rails in itself, but for many complex projects that require architectural solutions Rails doesn't support, Rails + inexperienced devs usually results in spaghetti code. Ruby is fine, but RoR is toxic.

nextweek2 12y ago
> Ruby is fine, but RoR is toxic. A language without its framework is like a hammer without a nail.
- busterarm 12y ago
  okay so...Sinatra, Padrino, Lotus?

busterarm 12y ago

So for someone who is working with ruby but technology agnostic and trying to land a gig as a junior dev, what do you suggest? I feel like switching stacks before actually getting work might do more harm than good and at this stage I'm not looking to contract.

ritchiea 12y ago
Don't switch stacks. He's expressing an opinion about code from Rails developers which is about as broad as opinions go this side of saying "black people are like X" or "Asians are like Y." On the bright side he does leave the door open that Rails developers could write solid code though most don't in his opinion. The best thing you could do is continue working on Rails but read a variety of opinions on good code in different languages, read Coders at Work and similar texts on coding, and remember not to blindly follow coding trends. Generally keep your code simple and work to find abstractions to fit your domain. I'm not saying anyone here is incorrect in their generalizations of Rails developers. I've obviously never seen the code they are criticizing. But they also aren't providing any useful information. Keep that in mind above all else. There will always be politics and disagreements. You're never going to make everyone happy and it would be a disaster to try to.
- jalfresi 12y ago
  This is probably the soundest advice and agree wholeheartedly; the market appears to be saturated with inexperienced developers. This means, at somepoint (probably about now actually) there will be a very real need for good/great rails/ruby devs to come in and sort out all this mess. Not everyone will be able to dump and rewrite their projects; some will need tidying and new features added. You could make a killing there is your disciplined (think of Y2K and all the old experienced cobol devs coming out the framework to fix stuff)