An ode to Ruby

‘tis Christmas season, time for snow, carols and joy,
The code freeze is here, yesterday was my last deploy.
Still my favorite moment is when under the tree,
I always find a new version of ruby.

Today I take this opportunity to reflect on the past
Where my journey began, not knowing how long it would last.
_why’s poignant guide was an amusing read
It made me smile and think: “wow, this language is weird!”

Writing programs soon felt simple, elegant and natural.
No convoluted syntax here. Trust me, I looked.
It was the best of perl, lisp and smalltalk,
And none of the quirks. That’s it, I was hooked!

And then there was this thing called Rails,
A blog in ten minutes, could this be possible?
It was a lot to take in, but I hung in there
The tutorial helped a lot, thank you Michael Hartl!

Years have passed, and Rails is now my daily craft
I still enjoy every moment of it. Yes, even ActiveRecord.
And when people ask me “is ruby dead?”, I just answer:
No. It’s just boring, in the best sense of the word.

Don’t get me wrong, I love innovation and new ideas
But it sometimes seems like the web has jumped the shark
So I’m happy to get off the new framework treadmill
No web3 for me, thanks. I’m off to the park!

For I don’t want shiny. I want productive and simple.
What I need is to write code, and maybe be weird once or twice.
Join us under our big tent, you are more than welcome
For Matz is nice and so we are nice.

So here’s to you, Ruby, Rails and the whole community,
May you still thrive and make people cheery.
I leave you now, and go back to my desk
For I once again have trouble installing Nokogiri.