Thank You Rails

In Win Books By Blogging, Jarkko Laine asks "How has Ruby on Rails made you a better programmer?" The response in the same post answers the question very well - Rails increases productivity, makes development fun, and makes not using best practices difficult.

However, Ruby on Rails has made me, and many others, a better programmer in another very important way: Ruby. I envy developers who have been using Ruby since the first edition of the Pick Axe; I only came to Ruby through Rails. In addition to making me a better web developer, Rails showed me Ruby, and therefore has made me a better all-around programmer.

What is it about Ruby that is so special? Answering that question reminds me of a post by Kathy Sierra - Reverse-engineering user reviews. If you have not read Kathy's post, I recommend it. The main point is that you don't want your users talking about your company or your product - you want your users to talk about themselves and what they can do as a result of using your product. Using Ruby, I can add methods to any class at any time, ask objects all about themselves through powerful yet simple reflection methods, and...well, I planned on providing several examples of how Ruby makes me better, but I if I try I will end up writing a book instead of a blog post.

Thank you Rails - not only for what you've done for web development, but for introducing so many to Ruby.