Ruby Won't Die While We Still Love It
I fell in love with Ruby in 2009, when I was still a student.
Ruby allowed me to build an accounting system for a local network completely on my own. For me, it was a big success. Of course, the system had bugs. It also had problems with data consistency. To be honest, it was not really ready for multiple users working at the same time. But it worked. I was a student, and I managed to turn my idea into a real system that people could use. Ruby made it possible. From that moment, I never really turned away from the Ruby way.
Since then, we have seen many technologies that were supposed to kill Ruby: Node.js, cloud computing, blockchain, Go, Rust, Python, and now AI. Every time a new technology becomes popular, we hear the same thing: Ruby is dead. Rails is not relevant anymore. Everyone should move to the new technology where there is more attention, investment, and money.
And every time, some people leave the Ruby community. They follow new opportunities and new promises. This is normal. Developers should try new tools and choose what works best for them. But many people stay. They stay for a reason. They love Ruby.
Maybe love does not sound like a serious technical argument. But I think it is more important than it looks. When people love a technology, they continue using it. They maintain old projects and build new ones. They create libraries, organize conferences, help other developers, and teach new people. This is how they keep the language alive.
I have seen it in my own experience. Over the years, I built two open-source Ruby gems: migration_data and actual_db_schema. I created them to solve real problems that I had while working with Rails. migration_data helps make data migrations safer and easier to test. actual_db_schema helps developers keep their local database schema in the correct state when they switch between branches.
What is important to me is that people still use them. migration_data has more than three million downloads. The newer actual_db_schema has hundreds of thousands of downloads and is still actively used.
Of course, the download number does not tell us exactly how many people use a gem. But I can see that these gems are still being downloaded. I can see that they are still helping Ruby developers solve real problems. And I am very grateful for that. I am grateful to every person who trusted my work enough to add one of my gems to their project. I am grateful to the people who opened issues, suggested improvements, contributed code, shared the gems with others, or simply used them in their daily work.
When you publish open-source software, you give a part of your knowledge and experience to the community. When other developers continue using your work years later, it means a lot. Their trust also gives me responsibility. It gives me a reason to maintain these projects, improve them, and continue contributing to Ruby. For me, this is what makes a programming language alive. It is not only about how many companies use it. It is not only about its position in a popularity ranking.
It is about people. One developer creates something. Another developer decides to trust it. Someone else reports a problem or improves the code. Then many projects benefit from this shared work.
As long as people love Ruby, Ruby will not die.
I still love it too. I have tried many new languages and technologies over the years. Some of them are great. They solve problems that Ruby was not created to solve. They have also changed how I think about software. But none of them made me stop loving Ruby. No other language I have used has beaten Ruby in its combination of expressiveness, readability, and conciseness.
Ruby code can feel very close to human thinking. When it is written well, it does not only tell the computer what to do. It also clearly shows the developer’s intention.
I don’t think this happened by accident. Ruby was created with love for programming and for the people who write programs. Matz created Ruby with developer happiness in mind. You can see that he still loves Ruby. You can see it in his conference talks, interviews, and conversations with the community. This spirit became a part of the language.
So, will Ruby die? Ruby may become less popular. Its market share may go up or down. Other languages may become more popular in new industries. AI may completely change how all of us write software.
But popularity and life are not the same thing. A language is alive when people use it to build something meaningful. It is alive when developers improve it, discuss it, teach it, and choose it for their next project. Not because it is the latest trend, but because they enjoy working with it.
My gems are only two small contributions to the Ruby ecosystem. But every time someone downloads them, uses them, reports a problem, or sends a contribution, I see proof that the Ruby community is still here.
We are still building. We are still sharing. We still trust each other. Ruby will stay alive while people continue to love it. And this love is still very much alive.