I was thinking back to DHH's Railsconf keynote from this year:

It largely centered around the Rails community's ongoing effort to keep up with user expectations while creating abstractions that limit the choices developers need to make.

Rails does not get everything right (nobody does), but I think they get this right big time. I find that the JavaScript community proliferates new "useful" technology without giving as much thought to the mental overhead of constantly learning new things and finding out how to fit everything together.

There are a few things at play. Rails has a pretty healthy BDFL model which has created some structure that other communities may lack, and often fails to benefit quickly from the latest and greatest tools or architecture principles. It's occasionally brutal in this way. But the acknowledged tradeoffs keep it healthy.

I would say this is the quality that most keeps me excited about the stack I continue to do most of my work with. I try not to be too much of a fanboy of the tech itself or the people involved, but I continue to really enjoy the effort to keep the mental load for developers under control.

I welcome a debate here, happy coding!