Zed Shaw Goes Nuclear On Our Community
Post by Peter Cooper
Click here to add on del.icio.usIn "Rails Is A Ghetto", Zed Shaw, creator of the popular Mongrel HTTP daemon / library, puts together an amazing 6000+ word rant on various areas of the Rails ecosystem (but, by association, the Ruby community too) and tears pieces out of several people in the community, along with Rails' code quality and Rails / Ruby consulting companies. Zed explains that the rant is "part of my grand exit strategy from the Ruby and Rails community."
If you're the type to get depressed by reading some pretty powerful ranting and raving, give it a miss, but this is a true "rubbernecking at the car crash" type article, and Zed, never one to sugar coat things, tells it as it is. The rant is due to be updated in the next few days with Zed's opinions about sucky Ruby conferences and why "the Pickaxe book is what killed Ruby."
From what I can make out, there's no way to comment over at Zed's site, so maybe this post will make a good place for you to comment with your own opinions.. so go for it.
January 2nd, 2008 at 1:20 am
That was awesome. Color me a fan of well articulated and well written rants !
January 2nd, 2008 at 1:22 am
I am a happy user of Mongrel and commend and thank Zed for his creation of it. Bypassing most of the language used on the rant, it appears that Zed ran into some unsavory characters that are within the Ruby/Rails and business communities. Unfortunately, those people are out there. We have all run into them, and it is unfortunate that Zed did as well. With any community, there are bad apples, and people trying to take advantage of other people. These folks should not be seen as representative of the community as a whole, regardless of their status. I look forward to seeing who Zed praises and why. As for the state of Rails and Ruby, I cannot wait until Ruby 1.9 goes production, and boosts our Rails apps as Rails 2.0.2 has.
January 2nd, 2008 at 1:50 am
Ridiculous.
I don’t mind a good rant, but this is way over the top.
He’s done well for the Ruby community and for that I have a lot of respect for the guy.
Granted all in that post were wrong.
First off, if he thinks he is moving to a different language and going to command anywhere near the same respect that he had a few days ago, then he’s got a fucking huge mountain to climb. No one is going to look at that post and say “he’s not a backstabber, our community is fine.”
Secondly, His complaints are more with Rails than Ruby and to quit a whole scene because of one framework is ridiculous. There are others around. If he doesn’t like the way DHH codes Rails, easily he could just port to Merb. Secondly, the public-facing people of a scene does not equal the quality of a product in itself. He did mention it but mostly it was “fuck it, i’m leaving, this community sucks because everyone else is at fault and I’ve had too many bad experiences with it.’
He also seems to be very immature. All the way he threatens with violence to the point you wonder if he’s truly grown up. He was even a protagonist in the IRC chat. Granted he didn’t get what he deserved, but he didn’t exactly act numinous.
The dealing he had with that company are nothing to do with Ruby in itself. It’s the people, not the tools, man.
The community has a ton to go, a lot of immature people. That can also be said for other languages too though. But as a whole, the Ruby [framework] scene is awesome. Railscasts is a great example. Oh, and the fact that nearly all of it is open-source.
January 2nd, 2008 at 1:57 am
If nothing else, his rant and the attention it will get are a good kick in the pants for developers using all languages/frameworks…within the Ruby and Rails world I’ve experienced a lot of what Zed rants about as well, but if I’m totally honest, I’ve also experienced the same thing when I was working in other languages and frameworks as well. Most of it seems to be a sad truth of ‘programming’ as a whole…it’s an easy enough, and accessible enough, line of work that just about anyone can fake their way into it (so A LOT of people do)…but it’s also very rare to be any good at it. If you happen to be one of the few that does continue to work at your craft and try to keep improving and moving forward (like ZED), you’ll find that a lot of people end up being out to ‘get’ you (I guess it’s a race to have them discredit you BEFORE you expose them)…and the more famous you are, the worse that seems to get.
Overall, I think it’s a good thing to have someone who’s actually got his hands in the code (and development world) out there saying it how it really is…and don’t worry too much about the language and such, it needs that for the shock value to spread like the wildfire it has already started to!
January 2nd, 2008 at 2:00 am
There’s also quite a bit of discussion on this at Programming Reddit (http://programming.reddit.com/info/6489w/comments/) and Hacker News
(http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=93984).
January 2nd, 2008 at 2:05 am
I just noticed TechCrunch posted about this and has 80 or so comments already. Didn’t notice before as I don’t subscribe to TC anymore.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/01/zed-shaw-puts-the-smack-down-on-the-rails-community/#comments
January 2nd, 2008 at 2:11 am
The guy’s not doing himself any favors with his rant; he comes off sounding like a narcissistic psycho. He may be smart [although really, how hard is it to build a web server that's faster than WeBrick? It's like building a sort function that's faster than bubblesort] … but face it, the software field is chock full of smart loners who can’t get along with others. Despite the evidence he musters up against a host of other people, he’s the one I’d be backing away the quickest from.
January 2nd, 2008 at 2:25 am
If you take everything personally, life is always going to be upsetting. Zed’s a smart guy, but he’s not as totally awesome as he thinks he is (though who is?), and everything that happens is not always about him. I’ve had to deal with him in the past, and he is about the most negative person I’ve ever met. This psycho rant is in total keeping with Zed’s penchant for going nuclear on just about anyone who walks into the crosshairs of his email rantzooka - he takes great pride in being cruel and destructive to people in public email lists or forums whenever he feels they have it coming. Also, he “retired from coding” a year ago in his blog post on 12/15/2006, so why is he pissed about not getting programming jobs? I expect he’s already alienated everyone he could a while ago, so now his “grand exit” is just him nailing the door shut after it’s already hit him in the ass when he got kicked out a while back. I’ve had to deal with plenty of morons and assholes in my career too, but I choose to make my own way on my own strengths, instead of trying to make myself look better by denigrating others and blaming them for my situation. Sure, Zed made a few valid points in his otherwise useless rant, and the Rails project could stand to grow up a bit - however, so could Zed. Any bets on who’s going to achieve maturity first?
January 2nd, 2008 at 2:34 am
I appreciate a good hearty rant just as much as the next guy, but direct attacks on TW might land him in legal trouble (if TW can afford the legal bills) But seriously I’d be interested in knowing his beef with the Pickaxe book as well, as I have had my own reservations about it.
January 2nd, 2008 at 2:36 am
I found the rant both refreshing in its uninhibitedness and cautionary. While there are scumbags in almost any field, the trick is not to complain they exist but to avoid being one. I sincerely hope not all he rants about is true, but am afraid too much is.
The practice of bait and switch in large consulting companies is legend, and at least TW is doing better than the big guys. Anyone knows (or should), that small companies have to deliver more value since their livelihood depends on it. The good news is that with Ruby and Rails or frameworks like Merb smaller teams can take on bigger jobs. I think Ruby has a very bright future with projects like Rubinius and others making performance less of an issue, and adding much needed reach-ability to core features of the run-time.
Like others I am grateful for Mongrel and wish Zed a good life in whatever he chooses to do. It is a shame to see him bail just as the community is going ballistic with success.
I have found the community both welcoming and open to new members. I loved RailsConf 2007 and look forward to 2008. I also hope we take his rant as a reason to look at what we are doing and how we do it, and make them better.
January 2nd, 2008 at 2:43 am
I’m also particularly looking forward to his rant on the Pickaxe. My personal opinion on the Pickaxe is already publicly quite clear. It’s often hailed as being a good introductory book for Ruby, when it quite clearly is not an introductory book at all. It’s a reference book. That’s why I wrote Beginning Ruby in the first place. I do recommend people get the Pickaxe or refer to it after they’re somewhat familiar with Ruby’s key concepts, however. It’s not a bad book, it’s just poorly targeted and a bunch of people are suckered into buying a book that’s next to useless for them in the early stages. I’m wondering if this is somewhat like what Zed might be lining up to say..
January 2nd, 2008 at 2:47 am
One thing Zed’s rant also highlights is something I have mega issues over, and the reason I still use a lot of PHP code (such as WordPress) even though I can’t code PHP myself. It’s an absolute nightmare deploying Rails apps.
I don’t get why some really clever so-and-so hasn’t come up with a mod_ruby that works in a somewhat similar fashion to mod_php. PHP as a language is no more “stable” than Ruby, but people perceive PHP as being more mature simply because you can upload a .php file and bam, it works. Not so with Ruby. You gotta know about daemons, proxying stuff around.. like.. WTF? If I didn’t have crap for brains, I’d probably start such a project, but I’m totally blown away that no-one is making moves in this direction already?
January 2nd, 2008 at 2:49 am
Zach Inglish pointed out RailsCasts. One need look no further than that to see a piece of the Rails community that exceeds every standard of helpfulness and kindness. In fact, I’d say that Ryan Bates, Geoffrey Grosenbach, and Michael Koziarski are some of the most generous developers you can find in any project.
If one of the main problems with the Rails community is there are a few people who aren’t respectful or helpful then I’m not sad to see one of those people leave.
January 2nd, 2008 at 2:55 am
I totally agree with Robert. I am very sad today because I am also a Mongrel fan and I still regard Zed as one of the greatest in the community. We will miss him. As Robert said, bad apples are not an exclusivity of our community. If humans are involved we will see them. That’s just how life is, as unfortunate as it sounds. We have to deal with them everyday sometimes. I am sorry Zed had to deal with them as well, I hope that at least this rant serves as a wake up call to them. I only hope this rant is not faced as signal that our community is rotten or something, because it is not. I am from Brazil and I have good friends both in the brazilian and american communities and they are all great guys.
Well, that’s my 2 cents. Cheers.
January 2nd, 2008 at 3:07 am
Hey Zed if you’re reading this, why don’t you offer two versions of Mongrel. One is the ‘free’ and the other ‘enterprise strength’ and charge a licence fee (may I suggest $9 or a multiple thereof?) .. I’d be the first one to use that. I hope you have the name ‘Mongrel’ trademarked (if not you better because, YOU KNOW WHO will!) (kinda like Fedora/RHEL thingy)
Man I’d love for you to make money off of this great product you created and what everyone is getting rich off of.
@Peter ditto on both counts (Pickeaxe and Deployment blues). I think Pickaxe is two books (Ref and tutorial) Printing a ref is sort of iffy and the ‘beginner part’ I found a little lacking. I haven’t read your beginning ruby book, but Chris Pine’s and even D. Black’s book is quite good in terms of ruby intros. And _Why’s_ book is in a class by itself :)
January 2nd, 2008 at 3:11 am
I can’t wait to see the response from DHH on this :) I’ve been sysadmin’ing a Rails app for almost 2 years, used a variety of deployment methods (currently nginx+mongrel) and still it gives me trouble. Coming from PHP, I couldn’t have asked for a nicer language to work in (Ruby) but deploying Rails really does suck (though it doesn’t suck as much as it used to). I haven’t deployed Java so I can’t comment on that.
I hope he follows through with the promise of more posts, and I’m keen to see the ‘official’ response from DHH. FWIW Zed is #1 on Working With Rails… How this affects the community, and outside perception of the community, is going to be very interesting, to say the least.
A good friend of mine met Zed in the flesh a RailsConf. He said that out of all the ‘celebrities’ he was the nicest and the most approachable.
Also, when is this going to hit Slashdot? :)
January 2nd, 2008 at 3:19 am
Zed’s Rant: Rails is Hate?
Zed Shaw is ranting about Rails. The effects are palpable. People are talking about the post. I’ve seen no less than a dozen tweets on Twitter in the last hour or so, and it has been by far the vast majority of the tweets about Rails.
The post is…
January 2nd, 2008 at 4:16 am
@Peter - You should look at LiteSpeed for deploying Rails applications. It’s as fast or faster than everything else out there and deploying a Rails apps takes three options (name, folder location and virtual host). It’s about as simple as deploying a site (rails or otherwise) can possibly be. Using Mongrel and any other web server is an absolute nightmare compared to LiteSpeed.
January 2nd, 2008 at 4:33 am
This is one of the worst victim stories I’ve ever read: “My life sucks and it’s all Ruby on Rails fault”.
I mean this in the kindest way possible, Mr. Shaw. The problem with your life is not ruby on rails, or the ruby on rails community. The problem with your life lies within you, and unless you change some fundamental ideas inside of your head, you’re going to keep on getting the same results and live a life of quiet desperation.
My experience with rails freelancing has been pleasant (I’ve always deployed with fastcgid). I’ve worked with great people, my clients have all paid me (save one who’s late at the time being), and contributing to the open-source community has been a rewarding experiencing.
January 2nd, 2008 at 4:50 am
Zed Shaw is a pompous ass. I, for one, volunteer to kick his ass. Name the time and place, Shaw …
What a loser.
January 2nd, 2008 at 5:26 am
I really loved the rant, I find very few people in the community are real technical evangelists. Most of them who blog, write plugins etc are just trying to score a corporate training gig or some good consulting etc.
I enjoy the framework, but most of the people in the rails community plan to make a quick buck. I think it is ok, but people should stop masquerading as technocrats.
January 2nd, 2008 at 5:47 am
Zed Shaw is a first class douche. Always has been and his latest post just proves it even more. I would gladly pay to see Chris (or anyone else) kick his ass.
January 2nd, 2008 at 6:19 am
He’s ranting about the technical stuff in Rails. Rails was never about technical stuff, it was about pretty code and happy developers. Nothing to see, move along.
January 2nd, 2008 at 6:57 am
Yah.. umm, Zed rants on Kev. Kev’s a truly friendly, nice, outgoing, and helpful guy.
Zed, I haven’t had contact with him. He made, umm, a moderately fast http server. BFD really. Yah, it seems pretty nice. But dude isn’t Atlas ya know. His ranting about other people with big egos and the like - dude probably should check the mirror.
The stuff about consulting companies is probably accurate, despite the hyperbole.
I did see him talk, about Utu, once. Not knowing him, but thinking, cool, I get to see the what the guy who made mongrel is like, I was curious. He was a complete asshole.
To his credit, a big portion of his “rant” is against himself; or, rather, against his employability. Having hired plenty of programmers, and put together very successful teams (C++, video games), in my career, I can tell you that he is the type of guy that is a no-brainer - No Fucking Way.
That he apparently wants to physically fight someone, about Ruby, Rails, or an irc log, speaks volumes.
January 2nd, 2008 at 7:21 am
Just read through the reddit thread posted by Aidann. Already keep up on News.YC
It is disturbing how positively spiteful many of the people on reddit are. There are a lot of ‘Fuck Rails’-esqe posting out there that are upmodded many times. Now I remember why I avoid that place.
There is no excuse for calling someone a ‘fat fuck’ EVER.
January 2nd, 2008 at 8:27 am
Symbolically, Zed is no longer #1 on Working with Rails: Popular list, as of today.
January 2nd, 2008 at 8:52 am
I’d prefer if Zed Shaw never existed quite frankly. You want to know why? It’s antics like this that prevent Rails being taken seriously and that means a lot more people miserable at work because their bosses won’t even consider Rails. Time for the Rails community to grow up, fork Mongrel with a more appropriate name and wash our hands of this juvenile POS once and for all.
January 2nd, 2008 at 9:35 am
I for myself found it an excellent rant. On the other hand, I have a high tolerance for being called names myself, so I didn’t mind so much his name calling.
What the rant seems to boil down to is that “doing things well isn’t always rewarded”. Which not only is true in the programming world but pretty much everywhere. I can really sympathise with a rant like that.
January 2nd, 2008 at 10:02 am
Most of the issues that Zed wrote about, whilst pointed at Ruby and Rails, are merely symptoms indicative of poor organisational and business practices. If things are broken, change them. Zed can’t change them, for reasons that are obvious throughout the post.
Still, career limiting posts such as these don’t come along very often, so I congratulate him on that.
January 2nd, 2008 at 10:07 am
There’s no question Zed Shaw is a bright guy and he did many of us a great service in creating Mongrel. That said, his rant was pretty much the antithesis of everything I loved about the friendly, sophisticated Ruby community. It’s the pinnacle of the aggressive Rails testosterone-laden in-your-face type of communication that runs counter to everything that Matz seems to embody.
What disturbs me more than Shaw’s rant is that so many people in web development applaud that kind of communication. (See O’Reilly, TechCrunch, etc)
January 2nd, 2008 at 10:07 am
From what I took in, I’d say it’s more ‘Zed Shaw goes Nuclear on ThoughtWorks’.
Enjoyable read, nothing really new apart from a couple of personal attacks on certain individuals. Looks like the Ruby community finally has its own ‘Bile Blog’. Which isn’t as bad as it sounds.
January 2nd, 2008 at 10:20 am
I am at a loss. What a fucking downer, Zed. You just trashed all of us when all I see is the same attitude that used to get me fired and homeless like you are talking about. Ego. Fuck ego brah, it only hurts you. There is always a smarter coder around.
Trashing Thoughtworks for doing what a consultancy agency does isn’t cool. I love Thoughtworks, and their tools. The people who work there are some of the nicest coders I have ever met. Bright Rubyists too.
No wonder why you are going homeless and hungry bro. You seem to be against making money!
Maybe instead of working for the Police you should become a cop, you have the right attitude.
January 2nd, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Zed tells a few serious things in this rant but they are lost between all of those ugly expressions, personal insults, even using the name of the insulted person of company repeatedly, and talking about himself like a psycho. Words like “I’ve studied enough martial arts to be deadly even though I’m old” tell it all. Make everybody hate you is not a way of retirement.
We are all thank Zed for his Mongrel server, with that he talks about his abilities much more than he do in this rant. Because of that I’m sad to see such important RoR person quitting from the community, but I think he need to take a big break in his live, think about himself from a more humble prespective and then redefine his live and become a happy person. Now he hates too, too persons, too companies,… Hate only drives a person to unhapiness.
January 2nd, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Anyone who rants like that for whatever reason deserves no respect.
January 2nd, 2008 at 2:13 pm
I’ve personally conversed (via e-mail) in the past with Zed regarding his great essays. (Yes, his essays are great IMHO)
He’s a very talkative and expressive guy. And downright honest.
I like people like that. There are so few of them on earth. Although I do bet there are so many people that wants to express their emotions but don’t, for so many reasons including “sanity” (or *external* sanity).
Everybody should realize we’re only sane on the outside. Inside, most of us aren’t really that sane. (I won’t back up with statistics, sorry, but begin the count with yourself…)
January 2nd, 2008 at 2:15 pm
You know, not to be hateful, but I’m really sick of reading about this. Zed makes some damn good points mixed in amongst the hate, and yes, it’s full of flamebait too. For sure. And everyone took the bait. And can’t stop talking about it. Let’s move on, and talk about some of the good things that are going on in the Ruby community instead…
January 2nd, 2008 at 2:27 pm
zapnap: It’s the end of the holiday season, so stuff like this gets more airtime just because not much else is going on.
BTW, on my mod_ruby comments, I thought I should point out I do know about the existing mod_ruby but it has a number of major issues preventing its practical use for deployment, from what I understand.
January 2nd, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Wow, with a personality like that I find it hard to believe Zed had trouble getting work. Hmm.
January 2nd, 2008 at 4:29 pm
He’s right, even though he could have used a slightly less abusing tone for his message.
Ruby on Rails is popular, got popular quite fast and that attracts the quick-buck types far more than “obscure” languages & frameworks do. I just hope that Rails and Ruby survive the “asshole onslaught” without keeping the bitter aftertaste of “yeah, the framework is nice, so is Ruby, but damn if I ever want to be part of the so-called community around it”.
January 2nd, 2008 at 4:35 pm
If this guy is so smart, why doesn’t he start his own business? That way, no one can hurt him.
January 2nd, 2008 at 4:53 pm
As with everything like this, there are valid points peppered throughout his rant, but those aren’t the issue. No one will listen to a mad-man. They will just call him mad.
If you aren’t able to make a living for yourself being as good as Zed says he is then something is terribly wrong. Zed may be a great coder, but if I was hiring a great coder the only way I would hire someone like Zed is if I thought there wasn’t anyone as good as him out there. But there are. Lots of them.
Zed is in some serious trouble. It actually sounds like drug use to be, but perhaps just a tough life has made him this way.
Zed wants this to happen. He wants people to hate him. He wants to be known and he thinks it is the only way they will know his name. It is sad and I hope for the best for him, but he really needs to talk to someone before he does something more serious to hurt himself physically.
Also,
I am also saddened by the reaction much of the community has had towards this post. I think is as funny as it is alarming on so many levels. At least the comments on Ruby Inside are more intelligent than the other site’s comments. Surely a good testament to the quality of your readers, Peter!
-Brad
January 2nd, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Don’t feed the trolls.
January 2nd, 2008 at 6:42 pm
I thought it was really entertaining. And Im looking forward to more.
I also love the first amendment. Nobody is trolling here. Zed can publish anything he wants at his own site. Resenting information is a bad habit. I dont think this is slander.
It won’t change my opinion of Rails of course. The meat of his essay isn’t news. It just has lots of colorful detail. Ha!
What I really find interesting is that he obviously *is* a nice guy. And he’s passionate too. This obviously isn’t drugs or insanity. Ha! Its more likely a healthy frustration with the juxtaposition of business and humanity.
I give it two thumbs up.
January 2nd, 2008 at 8:02 pm
I too find it disturbing that many people are praising the so-called “honesty” of Zed’s message. If violence is “honesty,” then I prefer to have people be dishonest until they get enough self-control to be able to discuss something without having to resort to verbal or physical violence. This is seriously possible people. There is no need to praise this kind of behavior when we have so many positive examples to the contrary.
January 2nd, 2008 at 8:31 pm
I dont think anyone has to worry about anything.
January 2nd, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Mongrel is the only way I can (somewhat) easily and (fairly) reliably deploy Rails apps, and for that I’m grateful to Zed. I can see why he would get so pissed off, but I don’t think the public rant helps as much as if he had made his points without as much )(*!#$. And it doesn’t seem to have much to do with Ruby or Rails, but just getting ripped off in general (which can happen regardless of language/platform/community).
My biggest question is the same as Peter’s: Why is there no reliable mod_ruby? Sure, Litespeed might work great, but the fact is that Apache is on many servers out there and running another webserver is not feasible. Mongrel is great, but IMO it’s a hack. What Ruby/Rails really needs is a mod_ruby that makes it as easy to deploy a Rails app as a PHP page. That is the biggest lack in Rails. It doesn’t matter how fun and quick it is to write an app if it’s so painful to deploy it in the “real world”. I feel (with no disrespect to the Rails Core) that rather than tinkering further with Rails (which is great as is), that they focus their efforts on easier deployment. I can’t think of anything that would generate more positive feelings towards Rails.
January 2nd, 2008 at 9:23 pm
It would be wiser to not let “small conflicts”, misunderstandings and angry grow day after day and than let the all come as a BAD WORD and ACCUSATION BOMB.
With my respects to Zed and his great contributions to the rails community, no one deserves a public shot like this one … even if there is evidence that the person shotted is faulty … there is 3600 other ways to do it in the right way, in a way such that no one will be hurt … in a constructive manner and of course with respect to others.
January 2nd, 2008 at 9:39 pm
I read the rant and while he may have had total right to break off and be pissed at the world I can say one way or another. The only thing that I have to disagree with is his idea of a community. He may look to the business leaders and those willing to pay to have something done with ruby or rails or whatever as the “community” I say nay.
In my eyes the community is actually made up of the people who are not only using the language but are there to support it. The people on the rails list, railsforum.com and especially Ryan B from railscasts.com who could probably making a pretty good amount of money off of his screen casts but doesn’t. I feel that all of those people and those similar if not mentioned make a great community. I use ruby and rails to develop my own little websites and to make my own little opensource things and I don’t have near the grief he’s bitching about. To me it seems that you get into situations you put yourself into. There are slime bags and assholes everywhere, trust me I know plenty of them, It’s not just this community, that community whatever they are everywhere it’s not just programming, business, whatever there are assholes that run a register at the local walmarts but I don’t see that as reason to stop going there.
Anyway I guess I’m glad to be part of the community that I’m a part of and thanks to all those people writing the how-tos, tutorials, and articles and for those just looking to make a quick buck.. good luck to you.
January 2nd, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Every one of us should think about our agenda in our life.
Some are govern by money, some by community respect, some would like to make a difference and leave a mark in history, some would like 5 minutes of glory and some … make your pick.
Nikola Tesla was misunderstand, sabotage by mediocre people most of his live but still manages to produce great achievements for mankind without to menu sorrow words. The same is with Aristotle, Plato, Michelangelo and probably all great people throughout history and even all of us ,ordinary people, has been in similar situation.
The key question is why the sorrow words? What is the motivation here? What he is trying to achieve?
Have you ever do something for common good with no compensation?
Have you ever be involved with mediocre people on a project?
Have you ever been misunderstood?
Has your great idea been ruin by inadequate personal or management?
Have you ever been not paid for the work that you have done?
Have you ever been misled?
CARPE DIAM is my motto.
Do not waste time and energy explaining that all odds are against you because they always are.
And one final thought, Zeds post is not about Ruby or Ruby on Rails as I expected to be, but unfortunately about something totally…
P.S. I love Mongrel, it’s a good peace of software and for that Zed has all my respect.
January 2nd, 2008 at 10:57 pm
What a brave man! At least he can speak out about all those shity people.
Keep going!
January 3rd, 2008 at 12:15 am
“There’s no question Zed Shaw is a bright guy and he did many of us a great service in creating Mongrel. That said, his rant was pretty much the antithesis of everything I loved about the friendly, sophisticated Ruby community. It’s the pinnacle of the aggressive Rails testosterone-laden in-your-face type of communication that runs counter to everything that Matz seems to embody.”
I totally agree with this. It’s great that Zed created Mongrel, it certainly helps everyone who likes working with Rails, but it’s a shame that so many people who work with Rails are in the “jock mentality”. And DHH is no exception to this (he may even be the primary offender).
There’s a difference between vast hacking skill and being a down-to-earth person. I don’t know what’s going on in Zed’s personal life, but I would agree with the comments of others and say that, if his skills are as hot as he says, Ruby/Rails is not the source of his problems. It’s something else…
Let’s put the egos aside, code in Ruby, be geeky and be happy.
January 3rd, 2008 at 12:46 am
Sadly, I too have met way too many characters like the ones described by him. It is what has made my company go away from Rails (and Ruby sadly) to Java which I neither like nor speak well. I think Jonus Luster said it well: “diplomacy is lies tenderly wrapped in fear and uncertainty” (http://www.jluster.org/scriptor/2008/01/02/zed-is-so-ghetto-and-i-love-it/)
January 3rd, 2008 at 12:52 am
Very well put Carl!
I’m surprised to see people praise this stuff as “honesty”. There is no virtue venting your anger out and doing such in a way destructive to yourself and to others. Honestly, what good will come from this post? Are people really going to say “oh yeah, Mr. Shaw, I guess you’re right, I should change and stop being such a —-insert profane adjective—”.
“Have you ever do something for common good with no compensation?”
That is one of the worst ideas I have ever heard, and if you try to do something for the “common good” with no compensation, you will end up miserable, frustrated, and bitter, like our friend Mr. Shaw. Telling somebody to do something without any hope for any kind of gain, be it personal reward, satisfaction, learning, education, is destructive and will ultimately be bad for both you and others. The only people who would suggest that you do something for nothing are the kinds who would like to enslave you and have you serve them for no reward. They believe in “win lose” - like if you choose to buy something from somebody, than they win and you lose. That idea ignores the fact that there was some reason you’d rather give up your money in exchange for what you are purchasing.
I’m sure there are different interpretations of “common good” - but, if by common good you are refering to what Karl Marx advocated, study history and learn what was the result of that idea.
“Have you ever be involved with mediocre people on a project?”
Have you ever been the mediocre one on the project? Have you looked at how you could inspire and uplift the others on your team? Do you care enough about them to find out why they are struggling, and how to apply your mind to create a win-win situation? Do you know that their success is directly related to your success, and if you can help them succeed, that will ultimately lead to your greater success?
“Do not waste time and energy explaining that all odds are against you because they always are.”
Amen! Life is full of excuses, and victim stories are so cheap these days they require no effort to come up with. I like this statement because it reminds you to say “yeah, life is tough, but what are you GOING TO DO ABOUT IT!”.
Tim
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:31 am
Phew… the post was in time for: http://yearofevil.com
Zed, what is 2008 ?
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:42 am
Believe it or not, yearoflove.com is actually available.
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:54 am
Zed please don’t ever go down to Mexico, otherwise my friends the federales will kick your egomaniac ass. I am sorry for those people that have to put up with this kind of person at any time in their lives. Don’t we all have issues and disagreements with other people? Do we choose to act like this monkey? Congratulations to the RoR community, you have finally get rid of this asshole. He is playing with language Factor, all I can say is I am sorry Factor community!!
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:06 am
Zed Shaw is a fantastic programmer, but he’s whining. Most programmers simply part in peace to other languages and or platforms. But no, not Zed. He has to be a pedantic little junior high boy about it and troll on and on about his bad experiences in the ruby and rails communities. We all have bad experiences with communities at one time or another, maybe not to the degree that he needlessly drones on about, but it happens.
In my opinion if he doesn’t like what he sees or experiences, he should just get off the internet. I’ve come across some serious a**holes as a web designer, so I can relate. But seriously, his ranting is only noise and means nothing and will continue to mean nothing. His disappearance from the rails and ruby communities won’t mean much. Its really a shame.
January 3rd, 2008 at 9:42 am
Not anymore.
It was registered by the capitalist pig-dogs at Thinkjobs.
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Zed, I have no medical degree but I would seriously recommend you getting checked for paranoid schizophrenia and/or bi-polar disorder.
January 3rd, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Zed’s little temper tantrum is nothing more than a cry for attention. Sad and pathetic, really. He reminds me of Britney Spears. That’s not a good thing…
January 3rd, 2008 at 7:57 pm
“Zed’s So Fucking Awesome”
Narcissistic Personality Disorder
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder
http://www.behavenet.com/capsules/disorders/narcissisticpd.htm
(1) has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
(2) is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
(3) believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
(4) requires excessive admiration
(5) has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
(6) is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
(7) lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
(8) is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
(9) shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes
January 4th, 2008 at 2:13 am
Hey did anyone look FBDSD perchance?
I believe it stands for “Fan Boi D?ck Sucking Disorder”
January 4th, 2008 at 2:53 am
Okay, someone just bought yearoflove.com. Doesn’t word fly!
January 4th, 2008 at 7:08 am
As a guy whose native language isn’t English, I am always amazed how many uses the word “fuck” has. They never taught use that stuff at school !
About the pickaxe book rant: I loved the book and I learned a lot from it.
January 4th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
As you read Zed’s rant I think it’s important to read the way he describes himself on his website:
“If you haven’t noticed, I’m funny and enjoy having fun. Enjoy my site, tell me if you use my projects. Don’t take it too seriously though, it’s all an act.”
Enough said, it’s time to turn to more important things…
January 4th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Zed may have gone over the top but he is dead right about two things. first, that ROR community behaves and talks more and more like the Java zealots of yester years. I think it takes much more to be productive than just knowing one language or one framework. You need skill that transcend over languages and frameworks.
Knowing syntax is not enough, learning to use the language in proper way with all nuances takes time (unless you are a super dude !) It is not that just because you code in Ruby and ROR that suddenly you will become super-productive. Learning and getting a language right involves a big learning curve.
Second, there is more to a finished/polished application than OOPs and design alone. You may be using an ORM but finally you have to tune some code by hand. Nothing wrong with that because that is the requirement. I do not think ROR ecology has mastered enterprise-grade deployment. You may scream mongrel, lighty and whats is wrong with Fast CGI but point is ROR stands no-where near apache + PHP combo when it comes to deployment.
January 5th, 2008 at 2:00 am
He’s like Tucker Max without all the women…
January 5th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Please, don’t feed the Troll. Zed is clearly in need of psychiatric help. I think he’s also secretly a gay, fatty chaser.
January 6th, 2008 at 7:49 am
Harsh? Flame-bait? Sure. Hilarious? Absolutely.
As a user of mongrel and a reader of Zed’s rants, I can only say that that was one of the damned funniest things I’ve read in a long while. Whether it stems from personal, professional, psychological or a combination of frustrations, there are few who can craft a rant like Zed.
Thanks Zed.
January 10th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
I found this totally hillarious, too. Of course, I’ve been victim to his rants face to face on IRC, so I knew going in that it was going to be a accident scene.
I will also say, mongrel was a step forwards towards in deployment, but mod_perl it isn’t!
We have mongrel, and deployment merely sucks less.
Oh yeah, no ring, I require a cage, and unified MMA rules. :P
j/k
/me hugs zed
But don’t forget! Rails has ponies, too! Ponies!!!
January 22nd, 2008 at 12:09 am
Read the rant - some good points - but would like to remind him about Shibumi! Read the quote below, it might help Zed bouncing off the walls a little. Zed, we’ve all been there . . . I hope you find your peace - soon.
What is Shibumi?
“Oh, vaguely. And incorrectly, I suspect. A blundering attempt to describe an ineffable quality. As you know, shibumi has to do with great refinement underlying commonplace appearances. It is a statement so correct that it does not have to be bold, so poignant it does not have to be pretty, so true it does not have to be real. Shibumi is understanding, rather than knowledge. Eloquent silence. In demeanor, it is modesty without pudency. In art, where the spirit of shibumi takes the form of sabi, it is elegant simplicity, articulate brevity. In philosophy, where shibumi emerges as wabi, it is spiritual tranquility that is not passive; it is being without the angst of becoming. And in the personality of a man, it is . . . how does one say it? Authority without domination? Something like that.”