Rails is (still) a Ghetto

http://www.rubyrailways.com/rails-is-still-a-ghetto/

by nreece • 17 years ago

8 11 17 years ago

oomkiller• 17 years ago

Personally I have no problem with porn images in a presentation, but they are a bit distracting.

Nevertheless, professionally I would never pull a stunt like this, or even consider it because of the risk of offending someone. What makes it worse though is that the offender will not apologize or even try to see the other side of it, which is then magnified by the core team members backing him up on it.

sho3• 17 years ago

"professionally I would never pull a stunt like this, or even consider it because of the risk of offending someone."

I find this a pretty craven position to take. You are always going to offend someone unless you offer only the blandest of commentary. Do you really want to let your speech and actions be guided by the lowest common denominator?

"What makes it worse though is that the offender will not apologize"

Because he feels he has nothing to apologise for? What do you want, a fake apology?

Hey, you didn't call me Sir. That offends me. Apologise.

"or even try to see the other side of it"

There is a limit to how far you can go trying to "understand the other side". Sometimes the other side is just bullshit.

Imagine you give a talk about evolution. It "offends" some young-earth creationists. Are you really going to try to "see the other side"?

"which is then magnified by the core team members backing him up on it"

Kudos to them, they didn't have to step into the ring, but I'm glad they did.

sho3• 17 years ago

Give me a break. I have seen worse pictures on the side of a bus shelter.

Who cares if a couple of wowsers get their panties in a bunch? Society suffers when everyone has to tiptoe around some deranged minority's wacky list of things to be outraged about.

No-one important that I know about has left the community because of this or any other contrived pseudo-scandal. Rails' popularity has not waned; rather the opposite. I could not care less if a small number of easily-offended prudes are scared away by a mild show of skin. In fact, it seems like a good thing.

What was that PG said .. "offending the right people"? Sounds like the right people have been offended here.

ankhmoop• 17 years ago

The side of a bus shelter usually displays advertising, not a subtle technological discussion on the state non-relational distributed key/value databases and their comparative value to RDBMs systems.

For example, compare slides 15 (RDBMs):

http://www.slideshare.net/mattetti/couchdb-perform-like-a-pr...

and 52 (CouchDB):

http://www.slideshare.net/mattetti/couchdb-perform-like-a-pr...

bad_user• 17 years ago

| I have seen worse pictures on the side of a bus shelter

So? That makes it any less wrong?

| Society suffers when everyone has to tiptoe around some deranged minority's wacky list of things to be outraged about

Do you have evidence about this? I think that's quite the contrary. Surely free speech is important, having personally experienced the aftermath of a communist regime, and not being allowed calling a turd for what it is surely sucks. But this is a different story.

And I think that deranged minority you're speaking of are the women.

| I could not care less if a small number of easily-offended prudes are scared away by a mild show of skin.

What ever happened to manners? Personally I don't care about looking professional. I don't like the term, because "professional" means working for money, and I happen to enjoy what I do.

But this isn't about being professional or not. This is about respecting other people. It's about showing courtesy to others, such that the others can do the same for you. I don't know in what society you live in, but I'm fed up with the racist, antisemitic and generally foul language in the one I live in. Maybe you've been spoiled? ;)

sho3• 17 years ago

"So? That makes it any less wrong?"

No, it means that it is self-evidently common and of questionable "offence value". In other words, the burden is on you to prove wrongness, since it seems to be just fine everywhere else.

"I think that's quite the contrary."

OK, let me get this straight. The contrary of what I said is:

Society prospers when everyone has to tiptoe around some deranged minority's wacky list of things to be outraged about.

Surely you are not seriously asserting the above. If you are, I can't be bothered arguing because you are either a troll or .. probably incapable of understanding no matter how much I explain. If you are not saying that, please restate.

"What ever happened to manners?"

What has this got to do with manners!?

"This is about respecting other people. It's about showing courtesy to others, such that the others can do the same for you."

I'm sorry pal but I have no idea what you are talking about. I do not see how this presentation had anything to do with "respect" or "courtesy". Of course I am in favour of those things.

No, this is about a small minority choosing to find offence in the utterly mundane and then demanding heads roll to quench their self-righteous outrage. Fuck those people. Makes me want to offend them.

"I don't know in what society you live in, but I'm fed up with the racist, antisemitic and generally foul language in the one I live in."

Rather orthogonal to my original comment, don't you think? If you don't like where you live, maybe you should consider moving.

quellhorst• 17 years ago

Link to the presentation, only suggestive images, no explicit images or nudity. http://www.slideshare.net/mattetti/couchdb-perform-like-a-pr...

kaveri• 17 years ago

I think this points at a general problem with developers.

Developers assume that just because "it works" then non-code issues are irrelevant.

In truth, people choose frameworks and languages not just because of the code and career opportunities but also because of the community. This goes for developers and management.

There is nothing wrong with that - software development is as social as any other human activity. A good community is helpful, welcoming and tolerant. Compare for example the Lisp and Python communities - Lisp has definitely been hurt by an elitist, unwelcoming community, whatever its technical merits.

After this presentation and related comments across the blogs, the Ruby/Rails community comes across as arrogant, sexist and immature (as do its leaders). This does a completely unnecessary disservice to the technology.

Steve0• 17 years ago

From tfa: "I hear you, dear creme-de-la-creme Rails (core) member, I know you don’t give a shit, and you think this is all prude babbling - because your hourly rate is more than some of us earn in a day, and you’ll be sought after even if Rails will have a much worse image than it has now. But 99.9% of us are not in the ‘circle of trust’ and would be happier if Rails would not be constantly associated with a ghetto."

I feel a lot of misplaced entitlement coming from that article. Open source developers build a framework and give it for free to other people. Other people use the fruits of their work and complain if the developers do non code-related stuff they don't agree with.

Besides, some people should watch some porn, just to know the difference between the images of the presentation and the label they give it. This isn't porn people.

The main issue I have with it that people go to a presentation that was titled "Perform like a P0rn Star" and afterwards "feel offended" or "uncomfortable". I just don't get that. If someone would say this in Europe the first reaction would be: "so why did you go and see it?" It's not like there isn't any other couchdb information on the net. There were also multiple other talks at this event at the same time slot.

I also understand the position of the core team. What if I write a code-framework and distribute it for free? Should I watch my words so I don't offend people, who might know some people who work with my code? This is just insane. Open source is a gift for everyone, and everybody is free (not) to use it.

yardie• 17 years ago

I'm not a rails developer but from an outsiders perspective, really who cares. And the people who are bothered remind me of the same people complaining of late night cable tv. The title of the seminar was called "Perform like a p0rn star"! That should be your first clue that it wasn't going to be the same dry stuff. It's not like they were rickrolled or anything. They gladly attended a seminar with pr0n prominently in the title and then get all offended with the imagery.

It would be like if vegetarian orders a meat lovers pizza and is devastated by what shows up.

ZeroGravitas• 17 years ago

Could someone explain what the phrase "Rails is a Ghetto" means?

I know what a ghetto is, but don't really get what the implication is here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghetto

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ghetto

Rails is (still) a Ghetto

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