Why are Rails developers so smug?
Recently I attended a series of events that had Rails developers there as well as Python developers, Java Developers, etc. It was a nice atmosphere and I enjoyed talking to the other people except the Rails guys. I don’t classify myself as any kind of developer other than just… “I’m a developer”. Currently I am using Django and I love it but this is just for one project, but I have always liked Python very much. Anyway, most of the Rails guys were just dickheads and looked down upon you if you used anything other than Rails. Most of them were punk ass kids that had zero clue about software development outside of Ruby and Rails.
In general, even on the web it just seems like Rails developers are really smug. I watched a talk from Cal Henderson the other day (which was great) and he made comments about how smug Rails guys are. Its true though, every time I read a blog about web frameworks some Rails douche bag chimes in to tell everyone how Rails will save the day and berate you for being so stupid to not use it. I’ve not used it (other than reading through a book) so I can’t speak to its abilities in the real world yet. I have to say though that I want no part of the community at all or Ruby for that matter (Perl’s prettier, somewhat brain dead sister)... I suppose I am ranting but I wonder if anyone has any reason to believe that Rails is so great that their evangelists can be such bastards.
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Because they are Rails developers. haha
I know plenty of developers in various technologies and they are all more or less the same. In regards to social communication, attitudes, and personalities. They are all kind of a-holes, but still decent people.
When you have to stare at all that ugly syntax, you have to overcompensate in some way.
The best thing a programmer can do is to become proficient in more than one language/framework (particularly in web development).
I know of quite a few developers who’ve gone from hacking PHP to using RoR, and they’re unable to identify any of the problems with RoR because they don’t really have any perspective yet.
Although this also happens with Python/Django (it happened to me), maybe there’s something about the RoR culture that encourages all that evangelism rather than “quieten down until you know more”.
They weren’t hugged enough when they were children.
@andrew: ha! Ruby syntax is very ugly to me for some reason.
@richardhenry Yeah – well I think maybe they can do some scaffolding and write some model validation and define associations like has_many :tools, through => :mouth or whatever it is—and they feel like they are now the world’s most enlightened web developer. I have been programming since I was 17 so like 14 years (11 professionally) now and I still don’t consider myself a master and tout that I know everything. I even went to school to get a CompSci degree and I think that left me feeling even more disillusioned… anyway I think Rails is probably fine but its not a silver bullet (nothing is). I just hate the way these guys think they’re the shit when they clearly are not. Rails is just a tool its up to person to be able to actually understand what they hell they are doing and having a strong computer science underpinning is certainly helpful (which also most Rails peeps don’t seem to have)
Because you need them, they are usually given perks like cappuccino breaks.
And they know you need them.
You can’t give them standard business structure. Like, do your job you’re getting a paycheck. Because everyone else is/will kissing their ass.
It is my experience that if something is good then it speaks for itself. When people have to go around trying to prove goodness by assertion then you know something is not quite right.
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