Ruby Is Not a Serious Programming Language

WIRED • December 1, 2025 • technology

Key Points:

Ruby, created in 1995 by Yukihiro Matsumoto, is known for its elegant, English-like syntax and a friendly community ethos encapsulated by the motto MINASWAN ("Matz Is Nice And So We Are Nice").
Despite its readability and charm, Ruby is a dynamically typed language with performance issues, often ranking among the slowest major programming languages and prone to programming errors known as "footguns."
Ruby's popularity has declined significantly since its peak, largely due to competition from languages like Python, JavaScript, and Scala, which offer better performance and more robust ecosystems.
Ruby's continued relevance is primarily tied to Ruby on Rails, a web framework released in 2004 that enabled rapid development and