

Is now the time to learn Rails? - cbw

With all the hype of Node, and other up and coming languages, do you think it is worth it to spend time on Rails? Is it going to be around for another 10 years? Is it going to look as good on a resume as Node might, in 10 years?
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meesterdude
I will say yes here.

First, I love ruby & rails. It jives with me. will it be around for another 10
years? there is no doubt in my mind. It has kept up with times and the
contributors just keeping growing. I still love it 4 years in. There's a lot
of snark at ruby & rails, but it is out of mostly jealousy & false ideologies.
There's a lot of rhetoric about scaling and such that for the most part isn't
true.

certainly not everyone uses rails, but i still see enough out there using it
that i'm not concerned for it's future. If, given the choice of frameworks to
use, people keep picking rails - it will live out quite a long life.

But you should really be the one to decide, in the end. As a language and
framework, both are enjoyable and fairly straightforward. Few WTF moments
(unlike my former PHP days)

is it worth learning? yes. Even a little can get you far. Node is good for
things too - but not quite the same things.

but what matters more is building things. That will look awesome on your
resume no matter what you build it with.

~~~
irascible
Jive means to deceive. I think you want "Jibe" instead..

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meesterdude
you just blew my mind!

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pedalpete
As a PHP developer who moved on to Rails and now Node, I think for the most
part the growth of Rails has stalled.

Doesn't mean there aren't Rails jobs out there, doesn't mean there aren't good
reasons to use Rails, it just doesn't have the mindshare anymore.

If you're looking to learn a new language, try to look at what is popular now
and what will be big in the next few years.

I personally think Javascript will continue to grow in popularity. There is
nothing else on the horizon for front-end programming (ignoring languages with
compilers to Javascript).

Other things to consider would be Functional Programming languages. Though
Scala is popular, I believe (and don't have experience here, so take my
thoughts with a grain of salt) that Haskell is probably more popular at the
moment. I'm not sure what other languages will be coming up and gaining steam
in that area.

I'd think about what you'd like to make or be making, then do some research to
find what would be the best language for that.

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dennybritz
As for FP, Haskell is a beautiful language, but its industry penetration is
far behind that of Scala. Haskell is perfect to learn about FP, but if you're
looking for a job _right now_ then Scala would be a much better choice.

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davismwfl
I wouldn't but that doesn't mean anything. Ruby/Rails is still used by a lot
of startups and there are plenty of jobs available using it. There are some
quick advantages to getting something done and usable as well.

I have been specializing in node for the last few years, but still do a lot of
C/C++ work too, so can't knock any of those.

I'd say node is a safe bet, as JavaScript is here to stay, although I am sure
it will have changes and new incarnations in the future. Not that Rails won't
be around, but JS allows you a bit more flexibility in the job market IMO.

As for new stuff to learn, there are a ton of things you could learn. Golang
and Scala come to mind each solving a different problem. If you are already an
experienced developer and just looking to learn the next thing, then pick
something that will round out your skill set more, otherwise pick up node in
my opinion.

Also, if you don't already have experience and you want to be marketable, I'd
also suggest really learning 1-2 data technologies, maybe ElasticSearch, Solr
(really lucene period), hadoop, or cassandra etc. To me those are all
technologies that have specific uses and can solve real world problems for
companies and make candidates more valuable.

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smt88
No.

Ruby is already not a super-popular language. Rails is often used by startups,
but I wouldn't call its adoption widespread. I also (personally) disagree with
lots of the philosophy behind Rails.

More generally, you're probably thinking too much about "should I learn
_____". Good programmers can make use of whatever tools are available. Figure
out what you want to do, and then ask "what is the best tool available for
this?"

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meesterdude
> Ruby is already not a super-popular language

is this opinion or fact?

> I also (personally) disagree with lots of the philosophy behind Rails.

You present this as reasoning but, doesn't make it wrong.

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zippy786
> You present this as reasoning but, doesn't make it wrong.

In essence you are trying to say Rails philosophy is right and the other one
is wrong ? This is exactly what's wrong with Rails too much opinionated that
it makes me want to puke for it is promoting pseudo-science. Give us fact
about any of the philosophy Rails uses, I remember, making too many SQL
queries is "just fine".

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meesterdude
The world is not black & white. Rails is good and works, but there are other
frameworks out there too that can generate a webpage. None are "wrong".

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raooll
No expert here, but elixir and phoenix are the next big tech frameworks.

[http://elixir-lang.org/](http://elixir-lang.org/)
[http://www.phoenixframework.org/](http://www.phoenixframework.org/)

