September 23, 2013

One of the most signifying perspectives at the end of thinking back on GoGaRuco was the tone of our community becoming old news. “Why Hasn’t Ruby Won” by Sarah Mei really hit a strong note with me. We made our strides, and now we’re receding into history.

Is this our ultimate fate? Possibly. Can we make a difference? Yes.

We’ve reached a point where the innovation trends are happening outside of our bubble. If we continue with settling with what we have then Ruby and Rails will recede into a comfortable zone and stay around just like PHP.

We need to embrace other languages and perspectives now. We need to scout out how other people do things and let that inspire us to bring it back to the Ruby community to let it flourish the way it needs in order to make a name for itself in the future.

Learn how other communities are solving old problems, or new problems, and bring it back to the Ruby community. If we do that, we have a chance to maintain our stride rather than let it recede into a picnic.

Go out and learn new things, enjoy the experience and then show the community what you’ve learned and how to do it, or do it better.

Feeling empty on what to learn and explore? Here are some ideas:

Embrace javascript. Learn Ember

Learn Angular

Learn about Node.

Learn about promises.

Learn advanced JS/Ajax techniques. Embrace other rising languages. Play with Go.

Try Haskell.

Give Obj-C a try.

If you ignore Javascript you’re going to be left behind. Yeah, Ruby is amazing and we’re used to this beautiful syntax but the hard truth is that Javascript is here to stay and if you look at any Rails project that doesn’t take it seriously then you’re in a minefield of hurt. The modern web demands a high command of Javascript. Make your life easier by understanding it and embracing the innovation that is coming out of it. If you take anything away from this post, let it be to compel you to take Javascript seriously. If you don’t, you’re going to be that PHP programmer in 2013 that still maintains Wordpress installs over FTP.

The other languages are more for your personal growth and the ability to take what’s interesting from other paradigms and potentially bring it back to our community. Every journey brings experience. Ruby is a unique ecosytem and I love the syntax that the language provides, if we are going to keep Ruby around we have to make sure that we’re doing what we can in the best way possible and the only way we’ll ever know that is if we’re aware of the other technologies that are around us.

Don’t get left behind. Stay current, and bring it back to home.

Thank you so much GoGaRuco I had an amazing time. Above all else, it was so fun seeing artoo.io get the love on stage, and on the Twitterverse. Damen, Ron, and Adrian did an amazing job. Go Hybridgroup!

P.s “Hello Svbtle” this is my first post on the platform. I hope to enjoy it.

Hacker news post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6434640

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