Thank You DHH for Making Ruby on Rails

I watched Ruby on Rails: the Documentary and loved the story behind an important piece of software for me.

Ruby on Rails helped me back into programming. After a time when I was in limbo - programming in C on my own for so long without a mentor, trying to start a new career in management consulting, fired from a role I didn’t have passion for.

That was a rough time in my life.

From C, I knew I had a solid foundation for programming. All those years being a coding cowboy on my own (and shooting myself in both feet) taught me a lot. When I left the role I wasn’t passionate for, a good friend gave me this advice:

Andrew, you’re really good. You should get back into programming.

I deeply admired this friend, because he worked with software legends - like the creators of C!

When I got back into software, Python was the rage. I coded stuff in it and Python was fine. Sure, the spacing annoyed me (I missed my curly brackets and K&R style).

After attending Python programming meetups, I didn’t gel with the crowd. Maybe it was me? Either way, I wasn’t passionate to program in Python.

A follow up lunch with my friend brought another insight: check out the Ruby Programming Language. Ruby is different than Python, even though there’s similarities.

When I started playing with Ruby more, I learned about Ruby on Rails - and there were lots of jobs that wanted Ruby on Rails as a skill.

This started my re-entry to software, my second renaissance in software.

I owe this to the author of Ruby on Rails - David Heinemeier Hansson. When I watch Ruby on Rails: the Documentary, my admiration for DHH’s work grows even more.

Go watch Ruby on Rails: the Documentary - it’s an influential piece of software and holds a special place in my heart.

Thank you David Heinemeier Hansson for making Ruby on Rails.