Keep Ruby weird again

[00:24.033] > Brandon: Ok. While
[00:27.033] Justin is setting up. This is Justin
[00:30.033] Searls. Does everybody know Justin? Hi Justin!
[00:33.033] > Justin: Hello.
[00:36.033] Are you guys ready to hear a talk?
[00:39.033] You believe that you're
[00:42.033] ready for my talk?
[00:45.033] Because I guarantee you are not.
[00:51.033] > Brandon: Alright. So here is
[00:54.033] the real fact about someone who is not Justin
[00:57.033] This person, joined the Army
[01:00.033] to rappel out of helicopters and shoot wire
[01:03.033] guided missiles at tanks. It's a true
[01:06.033] fact, but it is not true about Justin so far as I know
[01:21.033] So, most people don't know this about Justin
[01:24.033] But,
[01:27.033] he tweets. On the Internet
[01:30.033] This is a little know fact about Justin
[01:33.033] Is that he says things on Twitter
> Justin: hello…
[01:36.033] > Brandon: And, he, umm
> Justin: I'm a nice guy, I swear
[01:39.033] > Brandon: Alright, I have a fake
fact about Justin
[01:44.933] He once tweeted a rant so powerful that he made the
[01:47.933] fail whale cry
[01:50.933] > Justin: This is a young crowd. I don't know if
they remember who the fail whale was
[01:54.133] That was back when Twitter was written with Ruby
[02:00.133] > Brandon: Everybody, Justin Searls, who is
[02:03.133] really great.
[02:09.133] > Justin: Alright, just gotta get set up here. It's a
[02:12.133] complicated talk
[02:15.133] One complication is that I'm not going
to give this talk as
[02:18.133] myself.
[02:21.133] I'm going to give this talk as somebody else.
[02:27.133] Alright, just gotta button this up
[02:30.133] And, we're off!
[02:33.133] Woo!
[02:36.133] What a great room, Austin—hands down—
[02:39.133] one of my favorite cities. I was telling
them on the plane
[02:42.133] how TREMENDOUS the crowds in
Austin are
[02:45.133] Thank you Brandon, he's a really nice
guy isn't he? Thank you Brandon!
[02:48.133] Alright, please
[02:51.133] live-tweet all of your grievance to
@searls
[02:57.133] We good? Alright.
[03:00.133] Oh No!
[03:03.133] > Audience: You got a bum mic!
> Justin: I got a bum mic?
[03:06.133] Oh, right, yeah
[03:09.133] This is a
[03:12.133] dongle conspiracy.
I think it's weighing down on it
[03:15.133] It's rigged, yeah!
The dongle is rigged
[03:18.133] Now it just fell out
[03:21.133] We're going to start this one
just right over
[03:27.133] Here, I'm going to try this way. Ok, so
[03:30.133] let's just call that a do-over
[03:36.133] I just ordered the new MacBook Pro, and so
[03:42.133] It's just Apple calling to me
Alright, just gotta restart this now
[03:54.133] Woo, alright! Got all the nerves out
[03:57.133] So, yeah, everyone please live-tweet
[04:00.133] your grievances to @searls and I will
retweet the
[04:03.133] most terrible things that you say.
If your team needs more
[04:06.133] developers, my company, Test Double,
our developers
[04:09.133] are the best of the best
[04:12.133] I stand before you today
[04:15.133] to deliver (It's okay, it's intentionally
black)
[04:18.132] I stand before you today
to deliver a very simple
[04:21.132] message. Ruby's heroes
have failed you
[04:24.133] Ruby
[04:27.133] is a SPECTACULAR language, but
unlike every
[04:30.133] other language, Ruby has
always been led by heroes
[04:33.133] But today their ineffective
and spineless leadership
[04:36.133] threatens the very survival
of Ruby and only we
[04:39.133] who can save it. Together
we are going to take
[04:42.133] our language back. This goes all
[04:45.133] the way back, folks, to
how Ruby was first created
[04:48.133] Now in the beginning (unintentional black)
[04:51.133] There was Matz.
[04:54.133] Some people, tell me
that Matz is a Japanese
[04:57.133] Which, I think, is fantastic
[05:00.133] The Japanese love me
[05:03.133] I am told he's very nice, but that
was not enough
[05:06.133] for him to become Ruby King. Matz
was so
[05:09.133] weak it took a decade for Ruby to
spread beyond Japan
[05:12.133] Seriously! And thanks to Matz's weak
[05:15.133] leadership, we became dependent
on other Ruby
[05:18.133] heroes. First, came pragmatic Dave
[05:21.133] Thomas and Andy Hunt, who wrote
a very long (and very
[05:24.133] boring) book about Ruby and pickaxes
[05:27.133] Now this book showed how
tremendous
[05:30.133] Ruby is, but Prag Dave and Prog Andy
[05:33.133] lined their pockets building a corrupt
publishing empire
[05:36.133] that today is the biggest source of
totally
[05:39.133] biased technology books on the planet
[05:42.133] Later, "cheeky" Chad Fowler and
"Jolly" Jim
[05:45.133] Weirich—so called "community
organizers"
[05:48.133] went on to create a national ruby
conference. And together
[05:51.133] they started a service called RubyGems
so they could
[05:54.133] spread their lies and propaganda
more
[05:57.133] easily. "Jolly" Jim went so
[06:00.133] far as to make a CORRUPT tool called
Rake to
[06:03.133] force us to build gems how
he wanted us to
[06:06.133] The corrupt heroes created RubyGems
with totally
[06:09.133] open borders, letting in hippies like
[06:12.133] Whacky _why and D-List DHH
[06:15.133] And they've been flooding
in ever since
[06:18.133] _why acted like the purpose
of Ruby was
[06:21.133] to make art—he had no respect for
the free market
[06:24.133] He yanked all of his gems, which was
[06:27.133] totally unprofessional and NOT NICE
[06:30.133] Total Disaster. D-List DHH was so
[06:33.133] desperate to have an MVC
framework written in Ruby
[06:36.133] that he ported Java's Struts
as Ruby on Rails
[06:39.133] And, personally, I prefer frameworks
[06:42.133] that weren't ported
[06:45.133] But soon, things settled down.
The tyranny of heroes
[06:48.133] receded. Ruby entered its golden age
[06:51.133] Developers were unbelievably
productive
[06:54.133] In no time at all we built hugely
successful
[06:57.133] companies (and also Daily Deal
[07:00.133] Coupon Sites) and it was
[07:03.133] all thanks to Ruby. Ruby was
[07:06.133] winning. Every new startup was using
Rails, even
[07:09.133] if their staff had no clue
how to write Ruby. It
[07:12.133] didn't matter, Ruby's poll numbers
were through the roof
[07:15.133] Every developer on earth was either
writing Ruby or
[07:18.133] jealous of people writing Ruby. And
I remember
[07:21.133] those days. I wrote a lot of
skinny controllers
[07:24.133] back then, let me tell you. In fact,
people told me
[07:27.133] that my Ruby was the cleanest code
they'd ever seen
[07:30.133] We need to get back to that Ruby
[07:33.133] But soon, the establishment
venture capitalists
[07:36.133] wanted to change Ruby.
They wanted scale
[07:39.133] They wanted "Enterprise" and
our feckless
[07:42.133] weak-kneed heroes were all
too happy to oblige
[07:45.133] "Jumpy" José Valim worked
to make Rails 2
[07:48.133] thread-safe. The traitor, Zed Shaw,
[07:51.133] made the Mongrel server fast
and concurrent
[07:54.133] Aloof Yehuda made bundler, a hostile
[07:57.133] takeover of your dependency
management
[08:00.133] And everyone's favorite,
"Chicken" Tenderlove
[08:03.133] Spent years of his life
[08:06.133] rewriting the slow and
confusing ARel API
[08:09.133] for Rails's ActiveRecord,
which allowed people to
[08:12.133] create MASSIVE enterprise
SQL statements
[08:15.133] so fast that we didn't
even stop to ask
[08:18.133] if we should. But now that Ruby
[08:21.133] is mature, your heroes
got bored and deserted
[08:24.133] you for other languages.
We're left with
[08:27.133] B-Tier heroes too low energy to
switch languages
[08:30.133] like Terence Lee and
Richard Schneeman
[08:33.133] With our heroes gone
[08:36.133] Ruby isn't winning anymore
Ruby has become a loser
[08:39.133] language and it's time to take action
[08:42.133] As a result, I, Justin A. Searls am
[08:45.133] calling for a total and complete
shutdown of Ruby
[08:48.133] Heroes switching to Elixir
and Rust until we
[08:51.133] can figure out what the hell is going on
[08:57.133] We need to start planning for
life without our heroes
[09:00.133] And if you support me, we can
[09:03.133] Make Ruby Great Again
[09:06.133] We have to look beyond
the hero system, folks. Their
[09:09.133] phony loyalty to a language
as delightful as Ruby
[09:12.133] is a disgrace. And you know the
worst part?
[09:15.133] Heroes have known this for
years and yet they did nothing
[09:18.133] Here's what a left-wing, agile
[09:21.133] school called Extremist Programming
[09:24.133] They're not willing to call it that
but let's be honest, it's
[09:27.133] Extremist programming. Here's what
an extremist programmer
[09:30.133] had to say. "Heroes go it
[09:33.133] alone, working long hours
writing buggy code to
[09:36.133] accomplish what others think is
impossible in the time available
[09:39.133] The result is unrealistic expectations by
[09:42.133] management and inevitably results
in a DEATH
[09:45.133] SPIRAL as the whole team falls further
[09:48.133] and further behind. That's the ballgame
[09:51.133] folks. Heroes knew that they
were creating a
[09:54.133] death spiral and yet they did nothing
Truly disgusting
[09:57.133] Now some of our Ruby heroes,
I assume,
[10:00.133] are good people. Many did
[10:03.133] decent work for the language,
but they got greedy
[10:06.133] addicted to your retweets
and cushy conference speaking
[10:09.133] fees, they closed the door on us. Ruby
[10:12.133] heroes became the ultimate insiders
and they shut us out
[10:15.133] Heroes hid behind shadowy
acronyms like
[10:18.133] "The NIH" to explain why we should
use their
[10:21.133] gems instead of writing our own. They
[10:24.133] led our thoughts, and they told us
[10:27.133] that we couldn't be heroes too.
And then poof
[10:30.133] Those same heroes abandoned us for
[10:33.133] newer, more attractive languages.
And now we've
[10:36.133] become helpless without them.
That ends today.
[10:39.133] And by the way, somebody needs to
say this and I'm not afraid
[10:42.133] to say it. Ruby hero, D-List DHH
[10:45.133] was the WORST abuser of SemVer
[10:48.133] in the history of programming
[10:51.133] And rails-core was a total enabler
[10:54.133] let me be clear, if Rails won't
[10:57.133] lock down their versioning,
we should lock
[11:00.133] them up.
[11:03.133] The establishment
[11:06.133] venture capitalists that once
profited off Ruby
[11:09.133] are now shipping our jobs
to other languages and frameworks
[11:12.133] nobody makes things in Ruby anymore
[11:15.133] We need to send them a message
They're afraid of
[11:18.133] your power. They know that I'm the
only one who can
[11:21.133] bring jobs back to Ruby. The venture
[11:24.133] capitalists in their ivory
tower Silicon Valley
[11:27.133] open plan offices have rigged
[11:30.133] the mainstream media
like The Failing Hacker News
[11:33.133] against Ruby, if you open a hacker
[11:36.133] newspaper the entire front page
will tell you to build your
[11:39.133] app in anything but Ruby
Elixir, Go
[11:42.133] Elm, Clojure, Rust, and of course
[11:45.133] Node.js and React. But for Ruby
[11:48.133] to survive, these other languages
must be defeated
[11:51.133] It's as simple as that. Our
ineffective heroes
[11:54.133] have let these other languages
walk all over us, and
[11:57.133] some Ruby heroes are trying to
distract from their dirty
[12:00.133] secret that they are in fact only
1x programmers
[12:03.133] That they falsely claim that I have
something to hide in my
[12:06.133] Rubocop report.
[12:09.133] These are bald-faced lies
I promise you I will
[12:12.133] release my full, unabridged
Rubocop reports
[12:15.133] But, unfortunately, I am currently
[12:18.133] under a code audit, which
[12:21.133] for some reason happens to me
every single year, I get audited
[12:24.133] I'd be stupid to release them until
[12:27.133] the code audit is complete. Only
an idiot would release their
[12:30.133] Rubocop report while under audit.
[12:33.133] But I would gladly release
my Rubocop report
[12:36.133] as soon as Node.js returns the
[12:39.133] 30,000 deleted e-mails that
Stack Overflow
[12:42.133] says were lost because I
didn't call catch at the end
[12:45.133] of a Promise chain
[12:48.133] Unbelievable. Node.js
[12:51.133] Such a nasty runtime.
[12:57.133] Our heroes left us out in
the cold, but I
[13:00.133] guarantee I know more about
defeating these other languages
[13:03.133] than all of Ruby's heroes put together
[13:06.133] I'll go to the other languages and
negotiate better deals so that
[13:09.133] Ruby can start winning again. In fact
[13:12.133] I've learned that Ruby hero
Jumpy José Valim
[13:15.133] is the founder of Elixir
[13:18.133] And because he's a hero,
people turn a blind eye
[13:21.133] Totally shameless. Jumpy Jose
founded Elixir and
[13:24.133] he has a secret plan to destroy Ruby
[13:27.133] But, can anyone imagine
using Elixir? No way.
[13:30.133] It doesn't look very productional to me
[13:33.133] You know, I saw
[13:36.133] some Elixir when I walked by a coworker's
screen. I wasn't impressed.
[13:39.133] It didn't feel as
[13:42.133] free as Ruby. Ruby was great
because it was free
[13:45.133] We didn't need heroes to tell
us how to code. In Ruby's golden
[13:48.133] age, we felt free to write whatever
weird code we
[13:51.133] wanted. And we need to realize
that we are
[13:54.133] stranger together.
[13:57.133] A lot of people don't know this,
but Ruby runs on
[14:00.133] weirdness. Our heroes' failed
policies left Ruby's
[14:03.133] weird reserves at historic lows
Our heroes
[14:06.133] use code words like "mature"
to discourage
[14:09.133] creativity that they deem
too weird. Heroes
[14:12.133] like "Shady" Sandi Metz would
rather show you the
[14:15.133] "Syntactically Correct" way to write
Ruby, but
[14:18.133] I talk to a lot of developers
and they are sick and tired
[14:21.133] of all of this syntactical correctness
[14:24.133] Ruby heroes called our
[14:27.133] creativity weird because
they were afraid we
[14:30.133] wouldn't need them anymore. They
were right to be afraid
[14:33.133] We didn't need them. Anyone
can make their own
[14:36.133] gems. In fact, I made two
gems just today
[14:39.133] Tremendous gems. Code climate
[14:42.133] loved them. If we're going
[14:45.133] to save Ruby, we need to rediscover
its weirdness and the
[14:48.133] first step: stop listening to
our remaining heroes
[14:51.133] Other than me. Keep listening to me.
[14:54.133] Some people are saying—and I'm not
saying this—but some people
[14:57.133] I've been told—that we should
unfollow these heroes
[15:00.133] Heroes like Chicken Tenderlove,
Ruthless
[15:03.133] Ryan Davis, Cranky Gary Bernhardt
[15:06.133] And by the way, since Chicken
Tenderlove and Ruthless Ryan
[15:09.133] are the founding members of
Seattle.rb
[15:12.133] Something needs to be said,
folks. Most Rubyists
[15:15.133] are too afraid to call
Seattle.rb what it is
[15:18.133] Radical Parenthetical Terrorism
[15:23.033] It's just horrible More
parentheses are
[15:26.033] omitted and killed by Rubyists in
Seattle than anywhere else
[15:29.033] in the world. And our heroes
stood by and
[15:32.033] did nothing. If you support me
[15:35.033] I will deport Seattle.rb to
Vancouver Canada
[15:41.033] Without heroes, we'll all need
to step up
[15:44.033] to make Ruby great again. Post
on the blogs
[15:47.033] Record a screencast. Start a weird
newsletter
[15:50.033] And stop reading the lies in The
Failing Hacker News
[15:53.033] that tell you Ruby isn't great.
They're liars
[15:56.033] all of them. And I've been doing
this for years, by the way
[15:59.033] Ask anyone, they will tell you
that Justin Searls
[16:02.033] writes the wordiest blogs and
records the longest
[16:05.033] screencasts. And have you seen any
of my other talks?
[16:08.033] Nobody makes more slides at Ruby
conferences
[16:11.033] than me, nobody. I build the most
tremendous slides
[16:14.033] But I'm just one person and
that's not good enough
[16:17.033] to slow Ruby's demise. We all
need to
[16:20.033] step up and say what's really
on our minds. So if you have an idea
[16:23.033] Write your own gem. You
learn something terrific?
[16:26.033] publish on the blogs. And if you're
angry about something
[16:29.033] Argue about it with others
on Twitter dot com
[16:32.033] or on The Failing Hacker News
comment section, because if we
[16:35.233] can't show that Ruby is a strong
language, the other
[16:38.233] languages will keep walking all over us
[16:41.233] Back when Ruby was winning
[16:44.233] If someone wanted to learn how to
make a new web app, people would
[16:47.233] assume that they should learn
Ruby, but now people learn
[16:50.233] to program computers and don't even
know what Ruby is, they simply don't
[16:53.233] know. These smug, elitist
people from other
[16:56.233] languages are ignoring you and
your hard work
[16:59.233] and to make Ruby great again, we
[17:02.233] have to make deals with
the other languages
[17:05.233] Starting with the most popular:
[17:08.233] JavaScript.
[17:11.233] JavaScript is a total
[17:14.233] lightweight. Like a lot of you, I
simply fail to
[17:17.233] understand why JavaScript is
so popular
[17:20.233] You want my opinion?
JavaScript is a 4
[17:23.233] Tops.
[17:26.233] Maybe a 5, if it loses the semi-colons
[17:31.033] And JavaScript is very weak on types
[17:34.033] Unbelievable how weak on types
it is. Have you ever tried to compare
[17:37.033] two Dates? I will be very strong
[17:40.033] on trade with JavaScript,
because Ruby has tremendous
[17:43.033] wealth. Wealth like you wouldn't
believe. We have good testing
[17:46.033] We have conventions over
configuration. We have
[17:49.033] the path of least surprise, which,
if you've never been there, is
[17:52.033] a beautiful path. The path of
least surprise. The best path.
[17:55.033] Our weak and ineffective heroes foolishly
[17:58.033] tried to hide JavaScript from us for years
[18:01.033] RJS. Turbolinks. ActionCable
[18:04.933] This weak, isolationist strategy
totally failed
[18:08.933] And is leading to Ruby dying out
[18:11.433] And that's why I propose we go to
JavaScript and do what any
[18:14.433] good leader would do: negotiate
a better deal so that
[18:17.433] Ruby can start winning again
[18:20.433] Instead of continuing
D-List DHH's failed
[18:23.433] policies of mixing JavaScript into
our server-side
[18:26.433] HTML, I am going to Build. A. Wall
[18:30.033] Between our Ruby and our JavaScript
[18:33.033] Oh, don't worry, we'll make JavaScript
[18:36.233] pay for all the HTML.
[18:39.233] Ruby will provide—quiet generously
[18:42.233] APIs, but JavaScript is what
created this mess in our
[18:45.233] Ruby web apps and it will pay to fix it
[18:48.233] We need to be tough on JavaScript
[18:50.633] but I'll also be very very fair, much more
[18:53.633] fair than JavaScript has been
to us, let me tell you
[18:56.533] Look what they did last time we
helped them
[18:59.533] By giving them CoffeeScript
[19:02.533] They stole all CoffeeScript's good ideas
[19:05.233] And they totally choked!
Their interpolation
[19:08.233] is a joke. Their arrow functions
are a mess
[19:11.233] JavaScript's secret cabal
of language elites,
[19:14.233] the TC-39, is a total disaster
[19:17.233] Unbelievable. And now some
truly bad hombres
[19:20.233] Have claimed that my ultimate
[19:23.233] goal is to transpile Ruby into JavaScript
[19:26.233] These are heinous lies and
nothing could be further
[19:29.233] from the truth. And, besides,
[19:32.233] JavaScript wouldn't be my first choice
as a transpilation target, let me tell you
[19:37.733] Nice try.
[19:40.133] So people say that Ruby's dead,
but you're all here
[19:43.133] Aren't you? Look around you in
this room. You came to this rally
[19:46.133] today because you believe Ruby
can be great
[19:49.133] But it doesn't feel safe to
talk about Ruby anymore
[19:52.133] If you're caught using Ruby
in public, others will
[19:55.133] attack your first amendment rights
by disagreeing with you
[19:59.833] But we can fight back
[20:02.833] There's a silent majority that
stands with Ruby
[20:07.433] And the system is rigged, folks
[20:09.833] The establishment venture capitalists
don't want you to believe Ruby
[20:12.833] has a future. They want teams
to build over-engineered
[20:15.833] massively complex micro Node.js
[20:18.833] services and React web site apps
[20:21.633] for their unproven startups in
order to justify
[20:24.633] their pyramid funding schemes.
[20:27.033] They want to ensure that it takes
thousands of developers to build a
[20:30.033] taxi car app. And numerous years to
figure out how to
[20:33.033] sync a directory of files to a server
[20:36.033] The establishment venture capitalists
know how productive Ruby
[20:39.033] development is, but they don't
want your team to be productive
[20:42.033] They want it to be huge.
[20:45.033] Their entire empire is threatened
by Ruby's productivity
[20:48.233] I'm in business, I know this better
than anyone
[20:51.233] The VCs are so desperate that
they've been digging through my
[20:54.233] old repos—horrible people.
[20:57.233] And so my staff have asked me that I make
the following statement
[21:00.233] before we continue:
[21:03.233] ahem I apologize
[21:06.233] for using domain specific
languages in a
[21:09.233] project from 11 years ago
[21:12.233] It was a foolish decision.
One that I regret
[21:15.233] My use of Ruby DSLs has become
an unfortunate distraction
[21:18.233] from the issues that really matter
[21:21.233] In truth, it was just locker room code
[21:24.233] That's all it was
[21:26.033] Programmers when working on private
source code servers use
[21:29.033] DSLs all the time. In fact, even
the great Chicken
[21:32.033] Tenderlove used RSpec on a project
as recently
[21:35.033] as last year. Truly disgusting.
[21:38.033] And I gotta tell you I don't
believe the polls anymore
[21:41.033] I think Ruby's still really, really popular
[21:44.033] Everybody I talk to loves Ruby
Teams quietly
[21:47.033] use Ruby all around the world
[21:49.333] But Ruby teams are just too busy
being massively productive
[21:52.933] and making tons of money to stop
working so they can go
[21:55.533] comment about it on Hacker News
[21:58.533] And, if after all I've done, you
don't help to save Ruby
[22:02.233] This will have been the biggest
monumental waste of time and
[22:05.233] energy in my life. If you don't save
[22:08.233] Ruby after this, Austin, I'll be honest
[22:11.233] I'll never forgive you.
I'll never come back
[22:14.933] But irregardless, I will totally and
[22:17.933] graciously accept the result of
your team's election for its
[22:21.533] next programming language.
If. It's. Ruby.
[22:27.333] OK, hat's off!
[22:30.333] Whew!
[22:36.333] I can think so much
[22:39.333] more clearly now
[22:42.333] Let's bring it back to reality
[22:45.333] Where I co-own a serious company
called Test Double
[22:48.733] And which hopes that you
all understand what satire is
[22:56.833] So there's a good chance that
you're very confused right now
[22:59.833] Do I think that heroes who
made Ruby great are bad people?
[23:02.833] Of course not. Some of my
best friends are Ruby heroes
[23:06.333] Ok, seriously, I'm done.
That was the last one
[23:10.233] I was—like Trump—obsessed with being
[23:13.533] validated by others and I made it my
five year mission to become a Ruby hero
[23:16.533] myself. I wanted to see what it felt
like to be on the inside. Overall,
[23:19.533] it's been a fantastic experience, if
a lot of work
[23:22.533] But, when I hear that Ruby isn't
inclusive
[23:25.533] It's our outsider/insider system
of thoughtleaders
[23:28.533] that always stood out to me as wrong
[23:31.133] Why is there this huge divide by
the people who make gems
[23:33.633] and the people who consume them?
Because we're a very small pond
[23:36.633] in the grand scheme of things, and
we've just stocked it with some
[23:39.033] relatively big fish. So, that
makes us unusual
[23:42.033] But, I don't think we've done the job
of asking ourselves what
[23:45.033] problems our system of Ruby heroes
has created.
[23:48.033] Because, I can tell you, I've met dozens
of teams and hundreds of developers
[23:51.033] in my travels, and I've seen what the
learned helplessness
[23:54.233] that comes from looking to a small,
vocal minority as the
[23:57.733] solution to every problem can cause
[24:00.733] Worse, we have this habit of
appeals to authority
[24:03.733] they're very common in Ruby and
they train people not to be creative
[24:06.933] "Katie wanted to do this, but we told
her no because Sandi's book says
[24:11.433] …to do it that way instead". These
sorts of arguments
[24:14.433] suck the joy of programming. "Sam,
built his own…
[24:17.433] module of plain old Ruby objects,
but we fixed it by
[24:20.433] deleting them and showing
him the Rails Way"
[24:23.433] Now Trump-Searls has a point
[24:26.433] Because, as Ruby became mature
a lot of our heroes left
[24:29.633] Thoughtleaders run on retweets and
[24:32.633] maturity is a known retweet allergen
[24:36.033] So they moved on. And early on,
most people
[24:39.033] assumed when they came to Ruby—
because of all these heroes that
[24:41.633] keeping relevant was going to be
somebody else's job, but now if we
[24:44.433] do nothing, I think that eventually Ruby
is going to be relegated to
[24:47.433] cute-little scripting language status
like Perl has
[24:50.433] So even if we want to to replace our
[24:53.433] heroes with new heroes, I don't think
that's going to work, because Ruby's
[24:56.133] not the hottest language in the world
anymore. Passively attracting
[24:59.133] tons and tons of new talent. Today,
that language is called JavaScript.
[25:02.133] So we have to look within
to chart Ruby's future
[25:04.633] Ruby has its work cut out for it
and I'd rather that we
[25:07.633] all become heroes than just select
a handful arbitrarily
[25:10.633] So, it'll be a steep climb, but honestly
I don't think it's insurmountable
[25:13.633] You look at languages like
Node.js & Elixir, they
[25:16.633] have really fast async I/O, and that's
something Ruby could do better
[25:19.633] Rust and Go are just really fast, period
[25:22.633] and that's something that Ruby could
do better. But if you look at all the other
[25:25.333] popular languages, there are
opportunities for us to showcase what
[25:28.333] we love about Ruby. Ruby still has
meaningful things to say
[25:31.533] We have tools and culture that's
optimized for
[25:34.533] programmer happiness and
productivity. Promoting
[25:37.533] obviousness via the path of least
surprise. Consistency
[25:40.533] through well-considered conventions.
Carefully-designed
[25:43.533] value-based test suites. All
[25:46.533] that represents a niche that's
really valuable
[25:49.533] even if it's currently out of fashion,
so the hardest problem in
[25:52.533] application development is not
achieving performance or physical
[25:55.533] scale; if anything all of these
innovations we've seen in DevOps
[25:58.533] kind have taken Ruby's performance
concerns off the table
[26:01.533] Neither is the hardest problem having
billions of packages to depend on
[26:04.533] In fact, dependency churn is this
under-appreciated tax
[26:07.533] on a lot of teams' productivity.
The hardest problem has always
[26:10.533] been long-term maintainability
and Rubyists are well
[26:13.533] suited, I think, to show
the world how to build
[26:16.533] more maintainable applications. Ruby's
focus on programmer happiness
[26:19.533] gives us a certain empathy
for future maintainers
[26:22.533] Ruby helps Rubyists create
thoughtful designs, thoughtful
[26:25.533] tests. And the conventions are strong
enough that your skills are
[26:28.533] portable from project to project
even over years
[26:31.533] We're already seeing a ton of legacy
Node.js apps
[26:34.533] Project teams are asking
"What just happened?"
[26:37.533] "How did we get to this big ball of
yarn?" Highly maintainable
[26:40.533] and understandable Ruby could
be one
[26:43.533] potential answer for teams like that
but we have to show up, so my
[26:46.533] final plea is that if you believe
that you prefer Ruby
[26:49.533] for some reason, tell people about it
blog about long-term
[26:52.533] maintainability, even if it's a boring
topic. Compare Ruby to other
[26:55.533] ecosystems. Screencast tutorials
about design lessons you're learning
[26:58.533] Even if other people have said them
before, how you say it will be
[27:01.533] different. Find an organization like
Girl Develop It or Black
[27:04.533] Girls Code and show them the gentle
on-ramp of Ruby's
[27:07.533] syntax and community. And I don't
recommend ever visiting
[27:10.533] the Failing Hacker News, but if
you're there
[27:13.533] stand up for Ruby. Hacker News drives
a lot of decisions about
[27:16.533] the tech that companies use,
which is totally ridiculous but true
[27:19.533] And Ruby is rarely mentioned there
[27:22.533] anymore, because it's not new and
trendy. So the solution just can't be
[27:25.533] Turmp-like tribalism. It's not us-
[27:28.533] -vs-them. Let's all be polyglots.
The only way we're going to
[27:31.533] draw in outsiders. So when you work
in another language, like JavaScript
[27:34.533] empathize! Be kind. Don't assume
that others
[27:37.533] have had the same lessons that you
learned doing Ruby. You have
[27:40.533] valuable things to teach them just like
they have valuable things to teach you
[27:43.533] So, anyway, that's what we try to do
[27:46.533] at my company Test Double. We like
Ruby a lot, but we also engage
[27:49.533] with people working in other languages
because we want to help developers
[27:52.533] where they already are. And we're
looking for help.
[27:55.533] So if you want to work with us, Test
Double's always hiring,
[27:58.533] always interviewing. If you want
to Make Ruby Great Again™
[28:01.533] or Make JavaScript Great For The
First Time™
[28:07.233] Shoot us an e-mail at
join@testdouble.com. You know
[28:10.233] It's a real easy conversation. We
don't start with a whiteboard exam
[28:13.233] We just talk to you about who you are
What you like to do, how you like to work
[28:16.433] And then tell you about how we work and see
whether or not that sounds like something
[28:19.433] you wanna do.
Also I have stickers.
[28:22.433] So I'll be around all evening. I got
[28:25.433] a bunch of Test Double stickers and I
also printed out a thousand Make Ruby
[28:28.433] Great Again stickers, some are already
[28:31.433] in the sticker table in the back, but I've
got a whole bunch in my bag
[28:34.433] here, so I hope I get a chance to meet
all of you today.
[28:37.433] Thanks so much for keeping it weird
[28:47.533] > Brandon: Thank you Justin. That was
[28:50.533] problematic.
[28:56.533] I don't think I'm a millennial, because
I actually am really
[28:59.533] bad at detecting the line where people
switch back and forth between
[29:02.533] ironically co-opting populist
rhetoric and
[29:05.533] actually just using it.
[29:08.533] Thank you Justin,
[29:11.533] You're a good dude.