Open source software is great and all but I just wish that everyone that disagreed with me wasn’t allowed in.

All this drama has me worried. I'm unemployed and I've been doing ruby on rails for most of my career. With all the drama lately, do I need to find a different language or framework to work with?

Edit: Just for clarity, I have used a lot more than ruby outside of work.

I read the article, and it digs a lot harder into DHH than I think was necessary to make the point, which I still think is a reasonable one.

I was never into Rails (got sucked into Django too early) but I did hang out with the Rails community an awful lot in the beginning.

There was a pretty large migration of diverse communities to Rails in the late 2000s / early 2010s, and they were often of really different mindsets. You had the domain-driven thoughtsworky people, the 37signals-influenced folks, and all sorts of in-betweens and outliers. Rails also influenced how programming communities developed in general; prior to that community, my main "community experiences" involved getting flamed on alt.lang.perl and whatever crusty newsgroups were related to C++.

For a while I was very certain Python had "lost" the web to Rails and Node.

Anyhow, I'm saying all this partially to reflect, and partially because I think there's a great opportunity for another migration. I'm wondering how many of these folks have considered migrating to Elixir; from what I have experienced, the technology is great and has lots of potential, and the community around it feels positive and enterprising.

While I understand that railing (intentional pun) on DHH and Shopify can feel cathartic, at this point it seems helpful to move on for multiple reasons, and the spirit of Elixir feels similar to the spirit of Rails.

I feel like the left has forgotten how to build. My recollection of the activism of the 60s and 70s was like hippies building new kinds of anti-consumerist governance structures, and it’s kind of crazy to talk about open source in terms of how much money it costs. Let’s go forth and build something!

I have met both DHH and Tobi in person several times, and although I don’t know them well they have always been warm, kind, and pleasant to be around. Their contributions to the engineering community have been almost immeasurable. So what you disagree with them personally. Who cares? Do you like ruby? Do you like rails? Are you able to build a career doing something you love? Is that not enough?

If you disagree with things he’s done with Rails that’s one thing. But I would strongly suggest you reconsider the notion that he should be removed from leadership on Rails because of all his personal beliefs.

He’s writing a web framework man (along with thousands of other people who may or not agree with him), he’s not directing your personal life. You should strongly reconsider this blog post. One day, the same sort of ire you’re pointing at him will be pointed at you for no reason other than people disagree with you.

I talk to so many people on almost a daily basis now who are migrating out of Rails or have already done so. The brain drain problem is massive. DHH has grown a cult of personality that is actually shrinking the overall ecosystem. This is what happens with authoritarians. The "in-crowd" gets louder and louder—at the expense of a diminishing body politic due to increasing disenfranchisement.

I don't know if it's too late for Rails itself to be saved, but we need a robust Ruby ecosystem entirely removed from the RoR framework and we need it yesterday.

The author can't fork Rails because "the amount of work that goes into maintaining this ecosystem is enormous and expensive."

Rails IS FREE TO USE. If you want to improve test driven development, do the work yourself. Or start a company and dedicate 40% of your extremely well paid engineers time open source code others can use for free.

37signals and Shopify make the decisions because THEY DO THE WORK. I am happy to sit back and free load off of their contributions even if I disagree with DHH and Tobi's political opinions.

Rails would have become irrelevant long ago if it wasnt for DHH. Especially in recent years he has been doing an enormous amount of stuff to keep Rails relevant and still the top choice for rapidly building businesses with a small team.

I don't agree with him on political matters but that is irrelevant. He's not my senator, he runs an open source project (and does it really well).

No need to cause all this drama and taking a piss.

It’s a lot easier to stir up trouble than it is to take responsibility and create something better.

You can fork Rails, create whatever system you want for the leadership and strictly control that there is no rudeness. (from your point of view)

Have a better vision for the code and where it will go next.

Create something much better than any rude anti-intellectual right winger can do.

Right?

I’m super disappointed about this practice of demonizing and mischaracterizing people who care. It’s toxic, and fed by ignorance and unquestioning consumption of one-sided media on insular platforms. The gullible acceptance and regurgitation of false narratives is getting very old.

DHH going full mask off MAGA is not surprising at all in retrospect. People have been sounding the alarm about him for years and years.

DHH and Tobi are far right? Give me a break!

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I mean you can agree or disagree with DHH's politics, however I can see why it should affect our perception of his work on Ruby on Rails.

The article - outside of vague alignment with public figures and a few controversial blog posts - doesn't make any technical points.

You should be able to work with other people even if they aren't progressive (or right wing, or whatever). Braying "Nazi", "far-right extremist", etc. about pretty conventional mainstream opinions (probably the majority in the United States at this moment) just makes you sound unhinged.

I think invoking a programmers personal blog or points of view to make a point about project governance is wholly inappropriate.

There is absolutely nothing in the way of technical analysis or suggestions and the post even ends admitting that the author doesn't believe there's a tractable way forward.

What was the point of this? You don't personally like DHH? I believe everyone is entitled to their opinion but I don't think this article rises anywhere near a level that could be debated. I can only say "I'm sorry you feel that way."

What does DHH political views have to do with Ruby or Rails?

Sure dont let one person dominate the discussion though, if indeed he is.

Also noticed some of the hyperlinks are not good summaries of the linked thing. That is all I can say as dont want to start tangent, see if you agree.

So what if he’s right leaning and assertive in his views. Still a good framework, still good direction.

I don’t follow why a difference in politics affects engineering quality.