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Comment by cutler | Hacker News Reader

Python? That doesn't make sense. Anyone who appreciates Perl would surely choose Ruby over Python.

If what you appreciated in Perl was how pragmatic and "batteries included" it was, then Python is pretty clearly the right choice these days. It's got all the packages you want and get stuff done. I don't like Python's syntax, I think it's filled to the brim with false good ideas, but it's so widely supported that there's not much competition these days.

Although I suppose the way things are headed in a few years that might become... JavaScript, of all things. The theory that the world truly ended in 2012 becomes more appealing every day.

As someone who has worked arguably a lot with Perl, Ruby and Python, I too choose Python.

Ruby is just as dead. Only thing it had going for it was Rails.

Ruby is doing well as a configuration format. Look at Vagrant and Homewbrew, for example.

Also, there is Crystal, for compiling something very similar to Ruby, to native.

And that Ruby syntax slapped on Erlang

In Startup Land Rails is still thriving. Check out jobs on Angel.co and HN Who's Hiring.

I think you mean in San Francisco Startup Land...the other startup lands are less wedded to Ruby these days

London stats actually ;).

Is there even a good alternative to Rails?

As far as I know, it's still the best option there is for quickly building a MVP on the web if one isn't building a SPA.

Is Rails quicker and easier than, say, Django? Sure. Is it quicker and easier by enough to make it worth having another language in your stack? Not really, IME.

Laravel[1] is pretty close, and PHP has some big advantages over Ruby for performance and deployment.

If you had told me 5 years ago that I'd be recommending PHP as an alternative vs. RoR I wouldn't have believed you, but the PHP world has improved in ways that I wouldn't have thought possible.

[1] https://laravel.com/

Laravel may be based on the idea of Rails but in terms of programmer happiness it doesn't come close. A typical file of idiomatic PHP code reads like stodgy old Java and contains about 60% blank lines and doc comments as recommended by PSRs. Rails, by contrast, is elegantly concise and has fantastic metaprogramming.

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