Ruby, Fully Stacked
This is a comeback story of sorts for Fullstack Ruby, but it’s more than that.
I’ll spare you the intimate details of my serious Ruby-flavored burnout in the back half of 2023—if you really care to you can read up on it here as part of the Bridgetown 2.0 kickoff announcement. (Did I mention I’m hard on work on the next version of Bridgetown? 😁)
TL;DR: I got thoroughly bummed about the state of the Rails & Turbo ecosystems due to a long series of epic fails (in this author’s opinion) on the part of DHH and the cult of personality surrounding him which should have resulted in his ouster but instead seemed to cause Rails/Turbo to slide into yet more sorta-mostly-but-not-really-open-source insularity.
I mean, if I’m going to choose to continue working in a language community that is already niche (let’s face it, no matter how much you love Ruby in 2024, it’s a niche language at this point in its history), do I really want to bolster behavior I find extremely offensive? It makes no sense. I’m no real fan of TypeScript and the state of fullstack JS frameworks, but gosh darnnit I might as well just go full dark side if I’m unable to identify with a community I truly enjoy and respect.
Obviously I’m Still Here, So What Happened?
Time, essentially. By “emotionally walking away” from the fray of Ruby development and focusing on projects out in other corners of the industry (The Spicy Web, That HTML Blog, The Internet Review…uh, apparently I solve burnout in one area by burning out in some other area. Do I need therapy? DON’T ANSWER THAT! 😅), I was able to get some much needed perspective. And that period of rumination led me to this perhaps unsurprising conclusion:
I love Ruby! 😍
And more to the self-serving point, I love Bridgetown + Roda (+ Sequel apparently as the next logical link in this chain). Nothing makes me happier than using these tools to craft delightful online experiences, and while I can name tools in other language ecosystems I definitely appreciate—namely Eleventy by the inimitable Zach Leatherman, Fastify for rapid API development, and of course the One Frontend Bundler to Rule Them All: esbuild—my happy place still remains in the Ruby corner.
So it was time to step up to the plate once again. Time to go all in on Ruby, and specifically “alt Ruby” outside of the confines of a certain train-themed framework which dominates the space. It’s a niche within a niche, certainly, but at least it’s a niche I can be proud of. I am now a man “unconstrained”…able and willing to jump down any rabbit hole I might come across. Are you ready for some real “Keep Ruby Weird” vibes? I sure am!
So What’s Next? Relaunch of the Podcast? More Articles About Code?
Yes! Next question…
But seriously (not too seriously), I do intend to get everything up and running again. The full redesign of this website is the first step. I completely started over with a fresh Bridgetown install, using a variant of a theme I developed for That HTML Blog, which itself is a riff off of an older theme I developed for JaredWhite.com. (Hey, it’s a layout I really like!) I also rewrote the About page and my bio with a bit of a, hmm shall we say, salty take on the state of Rubyist frontends. 🤓
Now that this has all gone live, I can finally start mapping out future content. I have a ton of material in the form of work I’ve put into various projects over the past year utilizing both Bridgetown and Roda, so henceforth I can start “plumbing the depths” and bringing this material to the surface. It’ll not only benefit readers & listeners of Fullstack Ruby like yourself, but provide educational resources to users of Bridgetown & Roda. Best of all possible worlds? Precisely!
“OK, but Jared. All I do every day as a Ruby programmer is write Rails controllers and models and views and models and controllers and service objects [don’t!] and background jobs. How does any of this help me??”
Well, there’s nothing like exploring other patterns and techniques and ways of looking at things in other frameworks and languages and whatnot to level up your skills in your primary stack of choice. My love of Ruby has definitely made me a better JavaScript developer, and guess what? The reverse is also true, believe it or not! Researching other stacks can help solidify what it is you love about the tools you already use, or better yet it can give you brand new ideas to serve as a launching pad for writing better software.
I guess all I am saying is give alternative Ruby a chance. ✌️
You might be very pleasantly surprised. 