And if you need a reminder that seriousness isn’t the reliable signal people wish it were… Readability will matter more as AI writes more code. The future won’t be owned by one paradigm or one language or best tax software for expatriates in 2021 one ideology.
In the 2010s, a wave of companies replaced much of their Ruby infrastructure, and when legacy Ruby code remained, new services were written in higher-performance languages. Choose other languages for maximum raw speed. As a result, many teams use Ruby for web apps where iteration speed matters. Despite limits, Ruby remains practical for many startups and product teams. Yet teams such as Twitter migrated services to Scala to meet scale. Therefore, choose a language that fits your constraints and team skills.
Ruby Is Not a Serious Programming Language
Therefore, decisions should weigh developer productivity against throughput needs. Ruby earned its place by prioritizing developer joy and fast iteration. Therefore, evaluate needs, not slogans, when choosing a language.
Ruby has real strengths, and you should weigh them carefully. Because it sounds decisive, the phrase spreads quickly in forums and hiring posts. We will weigh trade-offs, compare alternatives, and survey real-world use cases. Because Rails popularized web development, Ruby shaped many major codebases.
- Is Ruby still a ‘serious’ programming language?
- It does.And if that makes it “unserious”… maybe that’s exactly why it belongs in the conversation.
- Among newer developers, Python and JavaScript rank much higher.
- And the community mostly shrugged… because we were busy building things.
- You may wonder why people are still using Ruby in 2025.
Re: “Ruby reads almost like plain English”???
Toward the part of programming that remembers people are involved. Gratitude for a community that believes programming can be expressive. Ruby just needed to stay out of the way so people could focus on the real work.
Whatever Happened to the Ruby Programming Language?
And the community mostly shrugged… because we were busy building things. Anyone whose identity depended on programming being a stern activity. The community was small. If you arrived late, you missed a chapter when the language felt like a quiet rebellion. ” — says a lot about what someone thinks programming is supposed to feel like. Ruby persists, for now, as a kind of professional comfort object, sustained by the inertia of legacy code bases and the loyalty of those who first imprinted upon it.
More so even than Python—a language known for its readability—Ruby reads almost like plain English. What I saw wasn’t a bejeweled tool but a poor little thing that hadn’t quite gotten the news that the world of programming had moved on. It wasn’t until my fourth job that I found myself on a team that mainly used it. Therefore, judge the language by requirements, not slogans. Because Ruby powers many real products, it clearly has practical utility. Visit the company website and the company blog to read case studies.
Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading! Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? My free Maintainable Rails email course will help you build software that still feels alive ten years from now. They creak… they bloat… they quietly suffocate your team. Join me on Maintainable.fm where I speak with seasoned engineers about the art of improving existing software. It does.And if that makes it “unserious”… maybe that’s exactly why it belongs in the conversation.
In my world… running a software consultancy for a few decades… I’ve never seen a team fail because they chose Ruby. It helped experienced developers rediscover a sense of lightness in their work. It helped small teams build momentum before anxiety caught up. Among newer developers, Python and JavaScript rank much higher. In the early 2000s, when building web applications was cumbersome, Rails offered a one-stop shop for developers. When Danish developer David Heinemeier Hansson, aka DHH, released Rails how hard is the cpa exam and why are pass rates only 50% in 2004, Ruby ceased to be the province of nice Japanese programmers.
Why Ruby on Rails Is the Best Stack for Vibe Coding in the Age of AI
Ruby is not a serious programming language, some developers still claim. In the programming language debate, Ruby earns points for developer productivity. Still, legacy codebases keep many teams tied to Ruby. Choose languages that match your constraints and team skills. As a result, the claim Ruby is not a serious programming language still circulates. Consequently, teams choose Ruby when developer productivity matters.
Is Sheon Han still a ‘serious’ programmer?
The future of programming is fuzzy for everyone. Gratitude for a language that centers the human being. But the sentiment wasn’t nostalgia. A detail reaching for meaning that wasn’t actually connected to the point.
It simply resonates with the people it resonates with. Some people like jazz. That’s not a failure of the language.
However, software development trends still value rapid iteration. Because Ruby powered many early web successes, its influence is real. If you prioritize fast iteration and developer happiness, Ruby still makes sense.
Reading levels in literature
On Stack Overflow’s annual developer survey, it’s been slipping in popularity for years, going from a top-10 technology in 2013 to 18th this year—behind even Assembly. The main code bases of Airbnb, GitHub, Twitter, Shopify, and Stripe were built on it. It survives because of its parasitic relationship with Ruby on Rails, the web framework that enabled Ruby’s widespread adoption and continues to anchor its relevance.
Is Ruby still a ‘serious’ programming language? Ruby attracts people who care how code feels to write and read. The question Sheon Han poses — “Is Ruby a serious programming language?
- They creak… they bloat… they quietly suffocate your team.
- If you prioritize fast iteration and developer happiness, Ruby still makes sense.
- Ruby on Rails developer sharing thoughts on software development, technology, and more since 2005.
- Gratitude for a language that centers the human being.
To arrive at a language late is to see it without the forgiving haze of sentimentality that comes with imprinting—the fond willingness to overlook a flaw as a quirk. By then, I’d heard enough paeans to its elegance that I was full of anticipation, ready to be charmed, to experience the kind of professional satori its adherents described. I wrote my first “Hello world” in an awful thing called Java, but programming only began to feel intuitive when I learned JavaScript (I know, I know) and OCaml—both of which fundamentally shaped my tastes. It’s often credited with making programming “click”; imprintees speak of it with a certain indebtedness and affection.
Scala?
A better one is… does Ruby still have something meaningful to contribute to the next chapter of software? I still think that’s the wrong question. And honestly… I think is a wash sale such a bad thing unserious people will play an important role in the future too. Culture doesn’t reliably reward the serious.
Ruby doesn’t seem to be for them. It’s how sustainable software gets made. GitHub held the world’s source code together for years using Ruby. That’s not an indictment… that’s success. Ruby wasn’t trying to win benchmarks… it was trying to keep you moving. Ruby made programming approachable.
