Could it be that Rails (and by extension Ruby) is the first really popular post-web-revolution language used for development since PHP, and, unburdened by lots of bad practices having evolved alongside (not necessarily because of) PHP, re-introduces a whole bunch of good practices like unit testing?

And could it be that as a result young, excited and still green developers, comparing themselves to the 'bad' previous web generation, get a bit cocky about it?

These are not rhetorical questions; I'm actually asking this. I came from humble hack-together-crazy-bad-php-apps, went through getting used to more frameworky stuff with Drupal, and then ended up at Rails with a certain comfort and a definite increase in best-practice. My first introduction to unit testing was through Hartl's tutorials, perhaps because I have no formal programming background. I could see how some people after a similar process get cocky about how great they are because they write tests.

I'm not defending cockiness or whatever characterizes the Ruby community. I'm just wondering.