Rails is a Ghetto (Part 2)

http://www.zedshaw.com/rants/rails_is_a_ghetto.html?part2

by carpal • 19 years ago

39 17 19 years ago

zedshaw.com

joeguilmette• 19 years ago

anyone who posts irc logs to prove what an asshole somebody else is usually ends up proving just the opposite.

apathy• 19 years ago

Heh. Looks like Zed was reading what people posted.

I can hardly describe how much more focused this revision comes across. Idiosyncratic but generally straightforward and (more interesting to me) much better examples on round 2.

I can't say that I disagree all that much with his talking points. For his sake, I hope his management career (resumption) goes well. Mongrel does seem like a well-written, strictly-RFC-compliant counterpoint to, say, Apache. (The latter being a fine example of Worse Is Better, viz. http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html ...)

mechanical_fish• 19 years ago

The key line in Version 2.0:

When I wrote this rant it was in kind of a private beta, but then it got out.

No kidding. Thank god my own diaries are handwritten!

Xichekolas• 19 years ago

All I can say is that if Zed gives up programming, he has a brilliant career in comedy ahead of him...

I feel like a dirty whore trying to get straight after a 10 year stint in a Tiajuana donkey show.

Oh wait, they don't write comments, because the "code should speak for itself." Right, that nasty shit doesn't say anything other than, "Keeeel me. Kill me please."

Oh, did I mention ThoughtWorks compared Rails to ColdFusion as well? Awesome.

No, not unstable, just pissed off. But if it makes everyone feel better then fine, I'm fucking crazy as hell. boogie-boogie-boo! (Morons).

When I cracked open Ruby on Rails I said, "Holy fucking shit they have nice meta-programming. Oooh, and you can do that with blocks? Oh and what's this nifty stuff over here? Damn this is pretty nice." It was like seeing the neighbors dorky daughter in a bikini one day and finding out she's built like a brick shit house.

gleb• 19 years ago

Hear that. He is telling the truth about his 5 min speech during RailsConf 2007, btw. It really was the most entertaining presentation of the conference.

pius• 19 years ago

His updates make this a much more effective rant.

sabat• 19 years ago

This guy really needs some therapy. His anger over trivial dealings in a tiny community of developers is astounding. The anger is really about childhood issues, obviously, and he really needs to get that shit worked out before he causes himself some real problems.

chaostheory• 19 years ago

It was funny when you first read it... but the more I think about it - it's kind of sad. We basically witnessed a public mental break down (which isn't too suprising in our line of work - being a former east coaster, I don't think it helps that he's in NY).

From this new revision it looks like he's trying to say he's sorry to a few people.

cglee2• 19 years ago

I don't think so. He mentioned in his first post he was going to follow up with a part II where he will thank a few people.

drubio• 19 years ago

Reads like "Lord of the Flies" for nerds

"Boys stuck on a deserted island who unsuccessfully try to govern themselves and consequently have disastrous results"

granderson• 19 years ago

I have thought about this for a few days and have concluded that it's a massive publicity stunt on Zed's part.

Think about how so many people get famous -- by creating controversy. Zed has done a great job (in terms of entertaining us)... now we just need to wait for the big announcement.

cglee2• 19 years ago

There might be something there, good observation. Notice his latest post talks about how his site survived the slashdotting, redditing, etc...and his promise of more info about his deployment environment in a future post. Pretty soon, he's going to be the deployment guru for Ruby (and probably Rails) projects.

edu• 19 years ago

Will this be a trilogy? The Lord of the Rubies? The Rail Wars? (boring)

tac-tics• 19 years ago

This guy's "rants" are aptly named. He vents his frustration the way I'm sure most of us do after a bad day at work: incoherently and unconvincingly.

I've long wondered whether or not to put in the effort to learn Rails. I would be more than happy to listen to any well-reasoned praise or criticism of the Rails community. Regardless of any accuracy he may have in his arguments, his writing comes off in the same whiny tone one might expect from a 13 year old in Counter-Strike or Halo who just got sniped.

And, yeah, the IRC posts are a bit much. When you're trying to provide evidence that people in some community are a bunch of assholes, it hurts your credibility if you use an assholish tone yourself throughout your entire blog post.

Move along, nothing to see here folks.

goodgoblin• 19 years ago

When I read the first rant, I didn't really get it - but now it makes a bit more sense. Sounds like Zed tried to make a career around Mongrel and ended up meeting a bunch of hucksters and shysters. I was actually thinking of attempting to do a little rails consulting myself - will definately keep this in mind as a cautionary tale. If the writer of Mongrel has a hard time making a living doing Rails consulting, might not be too much money in it after all. Also - thinking about the kind of people who would be interested in paying for a Rails project - they probably have read about how coding in RoR is like putting together legos or something and so would expect to pay very little. In many cases you are likely to get people looking to do something on the cheap.

Not saying you would need to do "Rails consulting" - any kind of consulting could be successful - i.e. a normal project where to the client the technology was not as important. But if you wrote Mongrel and tried to make a living by getting consulting gigs on that reputation, could explain why he ended up dealing with the kinds of people he did.

anaphoric• 19 years ago

Yes I think that Zed shows that the "meritioracy" is something of a lie....

The natural response has come about... And what is the natural response to fight individual expression?

It's the mob. The mafia. They are in control now... Too bad, but the world is a sewer and they are the rats.

cera• 19 years ago

Here are some videos interviews. He talks alot about the same issues, but these happen to be safe-for-work.

http://www.infoq.com/interviews/ruby-zed-shaw http://www.infoq.com/interviews/rails-shaw-pelletier

Rails is a Ghetto (Part 2)

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