HN Explorer

Ask HN: Is worth learning Ruby on Rails now a days?

3 points by ytzvan ↗ HN
I was wondering if is worth learn Ruby on Rails now a days because there're other technologies like Node.js, Scala and Go which I think are better than Ruby for web development. This comes because I never learned Ruby on Rails, and I saw the Mackenzie Child post on Medium (ICYMI: http://goo.gl/dFfflh), but don't misunderstood me, I think is a great idea and he provides awesome value to the newcomers who want to learn Rails. I'm already a Node.js developer, I use Express and even Sails.js, which I think is a great framework for fast prototyping. But, if I already know Node.js, Is worth learn Rails at this stage?

3 comments

[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 20.3 ms ] thread
davismwfl
I don't know Ruby on Rails either and I stick to node/Go mostly. I'd say it isn't worth learning RoR unless you need it to solve a specific issue, or if you feel that it would benefit you in a job search. Of course, it never hurts to pick it up just to know something else, I always like learning new languages as I feel it helps me be a better all around developer.
ytzvan
Thanks! I think in a job search will be great! Because there's a lot of rails app over there and they always looking for RoR developers.
SilentNuke
Ruby (and certainly Rails) is still very much in-demand, and I'd say is still "trending" in terms of development languages. Granted, Ruby (Rails) tends to get lost in the sauce with the continual uprising of new languages and frameworks catered towards web development. However, I think that Ruby's strong community, even more-so with the Rails community, is what would make it such a good language to learn for the job market.

Aside from Rails, I think that Ruby will see even more of a surge in popularity with the recent progress in RubyMotion (they changed their pricing plans, and the platform is more easily available to the average developer now). I'm only now dipping into RubyMotion, but it's wonderful if you want to develop on the iOS or OSX platforms without getting heavily involved in learning Objective-C.

Anyways, I'm getting off-topic. Point is, I think Ruby is a very good choice. Being that Rails is the most popular framework in Ruby, Rails would be a wise choice to become familiar with too.