In Praise of dhh

The essay contrasts the early Ruby on Rails world, which the author experienced as creative, collaborative, and joyful, with the present moment, where dhh is described as harmful to the community and its institutions. It argues that Ruby’s strength came from lowering friction, valuing dissent, and making programming feel welcoming, while today’s conflicts around governance and leadership show those values under pressure.

Reading notes

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• The author traces their career and friendships to Ruby on Rails, describing it as the connective tissue of an important period in their life.
• Ruby is presented as a language and community centered on joy, playfulness, creativity, and a welcoming vibe.
• Rails is credited with making web development faster by integrating common components and reducing setup work.
• The Rails doctrine is summarized as favoring conventions, happiness, dissent, and a big tent.
• The essay says the Ruby world was welcoming but not inclusive, and that exclusion in open source was systemic.
• dhh is framed as someone who was often right and once served as a positive role model, but whose later behavior is described as abusive and driven by domination.
• Recent Ruby infrastructure conflicts are presented as evidence that Ruby Central and Rubygems are becoming more dependent on Shopify money and influence.
• The London post is read as coded hostility toward non-white people and, by extension, toward those he does not want in the Ruby community.
• The essay connects this to trans hostility, arguing that public advocacy for harm against trans people is part of the same pattern.
• The author describes rich and powerful people as socially isolated and more vulnerable to “brain worms” that amplify rage, fear, and domination.
• The piece argues that dhh’s public conflict style is not good-faith disagreement but a tactic that wastes others’ time and degrades discourse.
• The future of Ruby is described as diminished by industry trends toward more rigid, less joyful tooling and by organizations that reward power over openness.
• The author calls for democratic, accountable open-source governance and says project leadership should serve members rather than control them.
• The closing asks Ruby committers and participants to resist toxic behavior, build new structures if necessary, and make kindness the basis of the community.
• Python is held up as a contrast, especially for democratic governance and the PSF’s refusal of funding that would have conflicted with its values.