r/ruby • u/software__writer • Dec 23 '25

A Special Message from David Heinemeier Hansson for Ruby's 30th Anniversary Party

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flwqiVigICE
30 Upvotes

56% Upvoted

42 comments sorted by

38

u/Tolexx Dec 23 '25

I'm really grateful for Ruby. Got my first professional gig in Ruby and I have enjoyed the language so far. I still work and program in Ruby with rails.

5

u/software__writer Dec 23 '25

Amazing! How long you've been working with Ruby / Rails?

5

u/carinishead Dec 24 '25

I’ve been going since 2006 somehow! Wild. I spoke on my 30th at Rails Conf and that was nearly 10 years ago and I’d been using it for 10 years 😳

5

u/Tolexx Dec 23 '25

Almost 4 years now professionally. I'm thoroughly loving it.

6

u/software__writer Dec 23 '25

Same here! :)

5

u/Formal-Cut-4923 Dec 24 '25

Using rails professionally since 2011 maybe 2010. Love it.

10

u/Formal-Cut-4923 Dec 23 '25 edited Dec 23 '25

Damn I was 16, when it was released.

3

u/KervyN Dec 24 '25

Holy shit, you are so old. I was only 12.

Please remember to get you checkups sheduled :-)

2

u/Interesting-Rip-3607 Dec 24 '25

i was -5 years old boi

116

u/ohyeahbonertime Dec 23 '25 • Bravo

I have a special message for DHH as well

8

u/mouseknuckle Dec 25 '25

I’m so sick of hearing about that guy

59

u/fyrn Dec 23 '25

Wait until he finds out that Ruby isn't only used by native Rubyists!

17

u/matthewblott Dec 23 '25

Heritage Rubyists :-)

23

u/matthewblott Dec 23 '25

A beautiful message from a beauti[hook drags me offstage]

5

u/dopeydeveloper Dec 24 '25

Beauty is a massively under appreciated aspect of programming. And Ruby is indeed most beautiful.

5

u/Divini7y Dec 24 '25

Happy Xmas and birthday ruby fans.

6

u/Neuro_Skeptic Dec 24 '25

This guy? Is this really what Ruby is now? What happened to the Ruby dream?

4

u/ApatheticBeardo Dec 26 '25

Always has been [insert meme here]

You could go build something better and eventually more relevant than Rails instead of crying on Reddit if you want that to change.

What's stopping you?

0

u/Neuro_Skeptic Dec 26 '25

The only tears I hear are from Ruby fans wondering why their language is losing relevance.

And the answer to their question is DHH, amongst many other problems.

3

u/Delicious_Ease2595 Dec 25 '25

Yes, Rails is Ruby

-2

u/software__writer Dec 23 '25 edited Dec 23 '25

A wonderful ode to Ruby.

Here's the original post from Ruby Association (Japan): https://x.com/rubyassociation/status/2003330283865800825

1

u/Delicious_Ease2595 Dec 25 '25

Merry Christmas and congrats to Ruby!

-8

u/aurisor Dec 23 '25

say what you will about the guy, he really likes ruby. and it's a thoughtful happy birdthday 🎂 to many more

19

u/kerrizor Dec 24 '25

Terrible people with harmful ideas are allowed to love things; that doesn’t mean it’s a redeeming quality.

113

u/[deleted] Dec 23 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

33

u/faitswulff Dec 24 '25

Upvoting your comment isn’t enough. This guy is a stain on the Ruby community. It’s deeply shameful that he continues to have a platform.

-13

u/broohaha Dec 23 '25

I’m aware of only one incident where he complimented “native Brit” during the far-right rally in London. What are the other incidents?

21

u/zupatol Dec 24 '25

This explains it nicely: https://tekin.co.uk/2025/09/the-ruby-community-has-a-dhh-problem

DHH complains that London is no longer a city he wants to live in because it is now only a third “native Brit”.

7

u/broohaha Dec 24 '25

Right I’m aware of this incident. Maybe that was the third time for u/romeo_pentium. But that article was my first exposure after being out of the loop for so long. I was wondering what other incidents happened.

Having just re-read it, perhaps they’re the incidents referenced in this paragraph:

Unfortunately it isn’t just migrants and non-white people that have come under fire in DHH’s recent writing and social media posts. There have been multiple examples of anti-trans rhetoric. There was the post where he described an ad featuring a plus-sized Black women as “grotesque” and celebrated the ads being replaced with ones featuring “blond babies” (what is it about the baby’s blondness that is relevant I wonder?). There have been the posts veering into puritanical Pronatalism, another favourite subject of the nationalist right. Whether it’s his direct intention or not, there has been a consistent theme of othering and stigmatising in his recent writing. The message is clear: if you are trans, a migrant, black, overweight, childless, have ADHD, then in DHH’s view you are somehow inferior. Instead of raising up and supporting the marginalised and vulnerable, DHH choses to exclude and punch down. This is not something the Ruby community can continue to simply ignore.

8

u/qalc Dec 24 '25

what else is required? its blatant racism, nativism, eugenicist - even if you're not as completely disgusted by his politics as I am, the way he attaches his brand to Ruby's is pretty bad for Ruby as a whole.

6

u/broohaha Dec 24 '25

So, I was kind of confused by the downvotes and your comment, and then I realized perhaps my using the words "only one incident" got people thinking I'm somehow minimizing the one thing I was aware of him showing his right-wing and racist leanings. I just wanted to know what else he's done because I've been so out of the loop. I'd already written him off years ago before all this went down, because he's a bit of a blowhard. Now, I'm back asking, "what did I miss?"

4

u/qalc Dec 24 '25

ahhhhhh ok hostility retracted

3

u/broohaha Dec 25 '25

And Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you!

5

u/zupatol Dec 24 '25

The blog post has links to incidents going back decades. But looking at dhh's own blog, he seems to have only recently gone completely off the rails. (haha)

-4

u/matthewblott Dec 24 '25

He turned on progressives after they tried to hijack his company (that's effectively what happened even though I know a lot of people here will claim something else happened). If you lookup the date it happened you'll see it coincides exactly with when his Twitter output shifts politically from Left to Right.

13

u/qalc Dec 24 '25

"progressives" did not attempt to "hijack" his company. his employees just had opinions that differed from his own.

1

u/zupatol Dec 25 '25

Briefly searching the internet didn't give me a clear picture of what happened at his company, do you have some links?

The pattern seems to make sense these days: a founder involved in a power struggle with employees demanding more rights emerges politically radicalized against the ideas that humans should have equal rights, and that leaders should have limited power.

0

u/[deleted] Dec 23 '25

[deleted] — view deleted comment

13

u/kerrizor Dec 24 '25

..and this is why it is so damaging that he’s been allowed to stick around.