I think Ruby as a language and as a community connects with a lot of people in more ways than just a surface level “can i accomplish X with ruby?”.

I can’t speak for other people and I’ll avoid using the ‘people I know’ as a reason to run to or run away from Ruby. I have really enjoyed Ruby over the years, so much that I don’t ever desire to go back to PHP, Perl, or Java. Ruby has been so expressive that it as challenged my assumptions about what a language should allow you as the coder to do.

This expression of creatively solving a problem has been very rewarding. The box I am constrained in is defined, but it’s less rigid then in many other languages. I like this feeling. I like working inside a slightly bigger box that provides me with more ways to solve problems, and with building blocks to let me create my own ways of solving problems.

I also love that the community is largely supportive and encouraging. This isn’t to say others aren’t, but I’ve had better experiences with feedback in the Ruby community. And I’m not sure I get what’s up with the non-Ruby world assuming Rubyists are all elitist mac fanboys. I think we know what we like and why we like it. I like my Mac. I used a PC for years and Linux for years following. And now I have a Mac. It works for me. I’m happy with it. Likewise, I’ve used PHP, Perl, and Java for years, but I like Ruby more. It works me. I solve problems and I am happy to solve them in Ruby. Again, it works me.

I don’t just love Ruby though. I love JavaScript to. A long time ago I loved PHP. Shortly after that was 4D/Active4D. There were a few scandalous programming language love affairs after that, but who’s counting, right? Most recently I tried to love Scala. I mean I really really tried. It ended up as a short-lived romance with me in the hospital and Scala in AA. It just wasn’t meant to work.

Back on point though, I don’t know why you do or don’t ruby, but I know why I ruby. And that’s all I really care about.