Hmm, sounds like their problems are mostly with their favorite web framework, not their favorite programming language. So I don't quite understand why they are looking for a new language.
It's also possible to write your own web framework! But it sounds like they want to find one with an existing community, not just one with the right technical choices. That's harder.
I think this is a point worth talking about! Not many non-Rails things have achieved even close to the same level of popularity as Rails. But this goes in both directions. Ruby is just as linked to Rails as Rails is to Ruby. For example, Ruby's homepage very prominently quotes DHH. That doesn't happen without some deep culture rot that goes past just Rails.
And yet lots of people use Ruby who have never used rails and there are dozens of ruby web frameworks which are better (in ways not limited to not being associated with DHH) than rails
There was a time when many in the Ruby and Ruby on Rails community were excited about an alternative Ruby web framework that was gaining real traction against Rails. Sadly, this project was killed (re: "merged" into Rails). You can read about why and form your own opinions (https://yehudakatz.com/2020/02/19/together-the-merb-story/).
I'm in a similar boat. I'm currently trying out Echo and Gin Go frameworks. The code is tough to look at compared to what I'm used to, but they can support Haml which goes a long way for me.
A thought occurred to me. Ruby on Rails was successful because it was opinionated and out of the box you can do a bunch of standard stuff easily. Makes me wonder if you can see the fascist roots in DHH even then with the "opinionated" part. Meaning fascist tendencies are usually "I'm right and if you don't do it this way you are bad". The authoritarian nature.
In other words, it should be obvious your world model, whatever it is, influences the way you build things. And if your world model is authoritarian, you will build "opinionated" software.
I've been using C++ for a long long time (since 1997) and that's a language that lets you do pretty much anything, in any way you want. It's democratically developed via the standardization process. The people working on C++ are not fascists and it shows in the way they work and how the language introduces features.
As most everyone knows now, DHH, the creator of Rails, has gotten his brain cooked on Twitter and is now a full-blown fascist. This blog post isn’t gonna relitigate that fact. If you think DHH is just a reasonable guy with differing opinions that should be respected, you can close the tab now.
If he's a fascist, it should be quite easy to write a piece like this in a neutral, cold tone. It will get the point across much better. And can allow you to include those who doubt your viewpoint at no cost; if the evidence is bulletproof, just present it and let everyone see how irrefutable it is.
Emotional tone does not make you more convincing or morally superior, does not show you as more trustworthy. It actually makes you appear biased and confused.
Or is it yapping of people who can't engage in a discussion and want to label those who disagree with them as evil that silenced moderate disagreement and brought out only the most extreme opposition?
We actually don't know what lead to the current situation, we can only speculate with low confidence, and some of us would disagree on how to characterize "the current situation".
The author of this blog does not owe you a neutral, unbiased viewpoint on their personal blog. They can use whatever language they see fit, and perhaps they deliberately wish to exclude people who "doubt their viewpoint".
Also, "if he's a fascist" has been extremely well-established at this point. There's no particular need to re-litigate it.
I really wish lobste.rs had a feature like RES's "tag user" feature so I could more easily highlight comments from people who keep sowing doubt in these threads. I'm tired of the fashy apologists.
There are pieces you are describing already written for those unaware of DHH's views, and while I'm am not the author, my impression is the intended audience for this post will be familiar of these widely shared posts already. This is post is about something different. About what to do after you've read those articles.
I love Ruby and Rails, and I even think Rails makes some great technical decisions that have still held up.
I'm more of a Haskel person. Just asked Claude to tell me what Ruby is like. OOP, duck typing, heavy reliance on mutability, open classes, ground moving under your feet at runtime, global VM lock, exceptions, variety of syntactic sugars. Sounds like a sweetened version of Python. I can't resist making a sarcastic remark of how one goes about his life liking programming in that until you decide that the political views of an influencer are the problem.
Ruby is basically smalltalk as a scripting language. Which means it has a lot of lisp heritage of course.
When I picked up Haskell it was pretty easy for me precisely because of how similar to ruby it was: ad hoc polymorphism, structured higher order helpers for everything rather than language constructs, etc
Cool! When I write Python, I can't help feeling it's everything that I don't want a programming language to be. You think Ruby will have less of that and more of FP, even if dynamically typed?
calebhearth | 12 hours ago
I have a lot of the same struggles and a lot of the same un-answered questions.
hmry | 12 hours ago
Hmm, sounds like their problems are mostly with their favorite web framework, not their favorite programming language. So I don't quite understand why they are looking for a new language.
It's also possible to write your own web framework! But it sounds like they want to find one with an existing community, not just one with the right technical choices. That's harder.
[OP] nick4 | 12 hours ago
I think this is a point worth talking about! Not many non-Rails things have achieved even close to the same level of popularity as Rails. But this goes in both directions. Ruby is just as linked to Rails as Rails is to Ruby. For example, Ruby's homepage very prominently quotes DHH. That doesn't happen without some deep culture rot that goes past just Rails.
singpolyma | 12 hours ago
And yet lots of people use Ruby who have never used rails and there are dozens of ruby web frameworks which are better (in ways not limited to not being associated with DHH) than rails
brad | 11 hours ago
There was a time when many in the Ruby and Ruby on Rails community were excited about an alternative Ruby web framework that was gaining real traction against Rails. Sadly, this project was killed (re: "merged" into Rails). You can read about why and form your own opinions (https://yehudakatz.com/2020/02/19/together-the-merb-story/).
LenFalken | 11 hours ago
Fork it
davidcelis | 11 hours ago
The author has a whole "Forks and Hanami" section where they mention there's already an effort to fork Rails?
brad | 11 hours ago
I'm in a similar boat. I'm currently trying out Echo and Gin Go frameworks. The code is tough to look at compared to what I'm used to, but they can support Haml which goes a long way for me.
mempko | 11 hours ago
A thought occurred to me. Ruby on Rails was successful because it was opinionated and out of the box you can do a bunch of standard stuff easily. Makes me wonder if you can see the fascist roots in DHH even then with the "opinionated" part. Meaning fascist tendencies are usually "I'm right and if you don't do it this way you are bad". The authoritarian nature.
In other words, it should be obvious your world model, whatever it is, influences the way you build things. And if your world model is authoritarian, you will build "opinionated" software.
I've been using C++ for a long long time (since 1997) and that's a language that lets you do pretty much anything, in any way you want. It's democratically developed via the standardization process. The people working on C++ are not fascists and it shows in the way they work and how the language introduces features.
ph14nix | 12 hours ago
If he's a fascist, it should be quite easy to write a piece like this in a neutral, cold tone. It will get the point across much better. And can allow you to include those who doubt your viewpoint at no cost; if the evidence is bulletproof, just present it and let everyone see how irrefutable it is.
Emotional tone does not make you more convincing or morally superior, does not show you as more trustworthy. It actually makes you appear biased and confused.
gignico | 11 hours ago
On the other hand, neutral and cold tone led to the current situation of socially tolerated fascism running through western democracies.
ph14nix | 11 hours ago
Or is it yapping of people who can't engage in a discussion and want to label those who disagree with them as evil that silenced moderate disagreement and brought out only the most extreme opposition?
We actually don't know what lead to the current situation, we can only speculate with low confidence, and some of us would disagree on how to characterize "the current situation".
gignico | 11 hours ago
Disagreeing is luckily still your right. I hope it will still be for a long time.
drmorr | 11 hours ago
The author of this blog does not owe you a neutral, unbiased viewpoint on their personal blog. They can use whatever language they see fit, and perhaps they deliberately wish to exclude people who "doubt their viewpoint".
Also, "if he's a fascist" has been extremely well-established at this point. There's no particular need to re-litigate it.
offby1 | 11 hours ago
This.
I really wish lobste.rs had a feature like RES's "tag user" feature so I could more easily highlight comments from people who keep sowing doubt in these threads. I'm tired of the fashy apologists.
brad | 11 hours ago
There are pieces you are describing already written for those unaware of DHH's views, and while I'm am not the author, my impression is the intended audience for this post will be familiar of these widely shared posts already. This is post is about something different. About what to do after you've read those articles.
ph14nix | 12 hours ago
I'm more of a Haskel person. Just asked Claude to tell me what Ruby is like. OOP, duck typing, heavy reliance on mutability, open classes, ground moving under your feet at runtime, global VM lock, exceptions, variety of syntactic sugars. Sounds like a sweetened version of Python. I can't resist making a sarcastic remark of how one goes about his life liking programming in that until you decide that the political views of an influencer are the problem.
singpolyma | 12 hours ago
Ruby is basically smalltalk as a scripting language. Which means it has a lot of lisp heritage of course.
When I picked up Haskell it was pretty easy for me precisely because of how similar to ruby it was: ad hoc polymorphism, structured higher order helpers for everything rather than language constructs, etc
ph14nix | 11 hours ago
Cool! When I write Python, I can't help feeling it's everything that I don't want a programming language to be. You think Ruby will have less of that and more of FP, even if dynamically typed?
singpolyma | 11 hours ago
Yes. Python is all language constructs and considers lambda a wart. Ruby is basically the opposite.
Of course it's not pure or well typed but ergonomically it's more functional than python for sure
weaksauce | 11 hours ago
ruby is a joy to program in and there is a lot of FP like things in there. I really dislike most things about python.
perrohunter | 12 hours ago
what kind of flawed logic is this? grow up