From: James Britt <james_b@...>
Date: 2005-04-17T06:28:22+09:00
Subject: Re: All Quiet on the Western Front: Is Rails overshadowing Ruby?

Trans wrote:
> Perhaps I have a skewed perspective (it happens :-), but it seems as if
> the ruby-talk mailing list has become rather "calm" in recent months.

Really?  There seems to me to be steady increase in traffic on ruby-talk.

> While Ruby-core appears to have a bit of activity, much of it seems a
> response to the stillness on talk. And alternate Ruby lists seem to
> have fallen largely silent, with one expection: Rails. 

Well, there's steady discussion on the Nitro/Og list,  but ruby-musings 
does seem quite.

 > So I wonder, is
 > Ruby at risk of becoming little more than a subset techonolgy of
 > Rails?

There may be some chance of Ruby "Strutsification", where increasing 
numbers of people are familiar with a specific API or tool but have 
little understanding of the underlying technology.

That may be good news for people looking for work customizing or fixing 
up Rails sites when needs outgrow basic skills.  (Or it may be mixed 
news: lots of Ruby jobs, but you'll be required to use Rails even when 
there are better Ruby options.)

Some of the Rails fanboy behavior may put a few people off Ruby in 
general, though I expect that over time the intrinsic value of the 
language itself will outshine any particular application.

(I suppose, of course, we'll be having the same discussion when the next 
generation of Ruby application framework makes a splash.  The more, the 
merrier.)


James