Ruby lives. I love the programming language. It scratches at my ego and heart. My first reaction is an emotional one: "No, you j***, you're wrong! Ruby is the best language in the world." But that’s too simple for a logician (INTP-A) like me. If Samuel (the boss) comes asking, I want to give real reasons. I just want to keep writing Ruby code.
The Hype Is Over
Let’s be honest. The hype around Ruby on Rails—the web framework for Ruby—is over. In the 2010s, we celebrated Rails as the path to IPO for startups. Twitter, GitHub, Shopify, and Airbnb all built high-growth Web 2.0 platforms with it. Ten years later, the startup world is less platform-driven. Monoliths are out of style. Microservices are in, and Data Science is driving more initiatives than platforms or apps. People have shifted to Python and JavaScript frameworks—or so it seems.
Statistics at Hand
Statistics show that JavaScript, Python, and TypeScript are rising. Managers want to invest in long-lasting technologies—and rightly so. They follow the principle: "No one ever got fired for choosing IBM." They go for the standard solution. It may not fit exactly, but it's safe and long-lasting (for better or worse). And the pool of available developers is big. But this view is too simple. A brief look at charts isn’t enough. We need to dig deeper.
Developer Cohorts
Hyped languages attract both amateurs and pros. Together, they make a large, but varied pool of developers. It’s difficult to pick out the best engineers. I call these "runway" technologies. Niche technologies, on the other hand, attract fewer developers, but those are specialists. They know why this specific tech is used—rather than something more generic.
This is a simple statistical argument along the bell curve: Everyone starts programming with the mainstream—avoiding obsolescence. But who stays? Who specializes? Who even quits programming? PYPL, a popular stats site, supports this: “The PYPL PopularitY of Programming Language Index is created by analysing how often language tutorials are searched on Google.” The Stack Overflow survey is a much better source for solid insights. It distinguishes between "learning to code" and "professional." In it, every other developer uses JS, TS, and Python—the runway techs. But Ruby developers, on average, have two more years of experience than Python and JS developers.
So watch out! If you choose the technology with the largest pool of available developers, you may fall into a cohort bias.
The Case for Custom Solutions
If you're reading this on the Renuo website, you probably understand the difference between standard software and custom software. It’s the same discussion. If you want something that fits, you don’t go with what everyone uses. You choose Python for machine learning and image processing, Rust for secure systems programming, JavaScript for the frontend, and Ruby for complex business logic.
Ruby is not dead. We just don’t use it for every random purpose anymore.
