Posted by psxuaw 2 days ago
It does reflect what the language creators pay attention to. Way back when, when I was undecided between learning Python or Ruby, after visiting countless resources I noticed Ruby websites in general looked way nicer and clearer than Python websites, so I picked Ruby. Now, years of experience with both languages later, I have zero doubt that to me that was the right choice at the time. I would’ve been frustrated with Python to no end.
I no longer need either language regularly, but given the choice again I would not hesitate to go for Ruby.
All that said, I do agree with some other comments on the thread regarding the disappointing reliance on JavaScript here. Should just be static.
Sometimes it's nice to just let people rest and get on with life.
i agree it's not a great look.
Hopefully the website will keep getting regularly updated and tweaked (software, is a living organism!), instead of being frozen in amber for a decade like the last version!
That’s not really a thing anymore.
Just because you don’t agree with his views doesn’t make it “not a good look”.
In fact, the ability to think outside of his cultural bubble and go against the grain is something that makes him great.
But having DHH as a face of your programming language, a language that's supposed to have a "warm community", doesn't really make any sense, and it will obviously drive people away.
Hateful speech is stating: you are from a MENA region therefore you are x negative trait.
Being critical of migration is just being critical of migration, which is allowed. His defence ("suicidal empathy" etc;) comes from the situation in the UK where people are being arrested en-masse for "hate speech" for referencing acts of terror[0].
You can dislike what he says, but hateful carries a more specific meaning (to me, at least).
[0]: https://nypost.com/2025/08/19/world-news/uk-free-speech-stru...
In "As I remember London" he also says that crime increases when there are more brown people.
We should be able to criticise migration without everyone saying it’s racism otherwise you loosen the definition of racism so much that everybody becomes a “racist” eventually and it stops having a sting
You're allowed to criticize immigration, but if you only ever cherry-pick anecdotes about immigrants of a certain color and creed, and also refuse to correct your statement after you're made aware of the actual facts, you're most likely a racist.
DHH is also not criticizing immigration per se, because he's including non-white native brits in his category of undesirable Londoners. You can't deny that that's racism. These are people who grew up as part of the British culture, they just don't have the right skin tone.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20251003224438/https://assets.pu...
However, it highlights major data limitations. Ethnicity was often unrecorded or incomplete. Police forces supplied partial details only. The report notes that “the academic literature highlights significant limitations to what can be said about links between ethnicity and this form of offending”.
It also cautions against conclusions due to “data quality problems, the way the samples were selected in studies, and the potential for bias”. A 2025 audit by Baroness Casey confirmed this. Ethnicity went unrecorded for two-thirds of suspects. Better data collection is now mandatory.
While the report leans towards White predominance overall, it acknowledges high-profile cases “have mainly involved men of Pakistani ethnicity”.(also in[0]) It does not rule out over-representation in specific subtypes. This invites careful interpretation rather than dismissal.
On Cherry-Picking Anecdotes and Corrections: Selective stories can mislead. Yet DHH often cites aggregated data from European reports, such as Denmark’s figures on higher crime rates among certain immigrant groups. He praises selective immigration from compatible cultures and commends Denmark’s integration policies. This points to policy focus, not inherent bias.
If presented with the report’s full nuances and unmoved, that warrants critique. Given its caveats and recent calls for improved data, the debate remains open.
On Non-White Native Brits and Racism; Implying Britishness ties to skin tone is wrong. DHH’s remark about “Brits being a minority in their own capital” refers to the “White British” census category, at 37% in London per the 2021 census. This tracks ethnic shifts officially.
Non-White British citizens, many native-born and fully integrated, are undeniably British. If his phrasing suggests otherwise, it needs clarification. His posts emphasise rapid changes from mass immigration, not rejection of integrated individuals. Many non-White Brits voice similar concerns on resources and cohesion, without racism. Criticising policies can be valid if evidence-based and non-dehumanising. Targeting one group without balance risks bias. DHH’s stance seems data-driven on integration, but scrutiny is fair.
Thanks for the source though.
[0]: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
You even mention this, although for some reason do not comment on how it's clearly racist and misleading.
So I have to conclude you're either waffling, or you're pasting ChatGPT output without parsing what it means. Because if you apply your own logic, you would come to the conclusion that he's using far-right talking points to further far-right, racist views.
edit: I thought I recognized that name, you've replied to me previously with LLM-ish output. You're the weirdo Malmö guy with racist irc chat logs (this you? https://darkscience.net/quotes/#123). I mean granted, their ten years old. Men fan pinsamt ändå. Och med eget namn också, Jan Harasym. Inte vassaste kniven i lådan, va?
Same for absolutely static code examples that take a few seconds to load and shift the content away.
Why?
Unfortunately, most people today probably don't care about what you're talking about. (I do, but I've decided not to comment on it anymore, because it would probably drive me crazy :)
The designer fail to target their audience.
It's C/C++ developers that typically prefer a no-fluff approach.
One of the reasons Next.js is attractive to me, is exactly they have rediscovered why so many of us have stayed with SSR.
Hmm. We can agree to disagree on the definition of fluff.
Additionally, Next.js should only be used when SaaS product vendor doesn't allow for any other option, which sadly is the case when making themselves sellable to magpie developers, while riding VC money until the IPO takes off.
I rather deliver, than do yak shaving, but at least can deliver only HTML and CSS if I chose to.
This is bit too much to ask. Just check the source it is swollen with Tailwind.
> flex-shrink-0 transition-transform duration-300 hover:scale-105 w-[160px] h-[144px] 2xl:w-[200px] 2xl:h-[180px]
just to avoid CSS, not sure they would bother with CSS animation.
I like the design and content. Being able to immediately try a language online is huge
But there has to be a way to load that content in a progressive manner. Loading a static version first and then hydrating the content if you need interactive actions
Is the design debate public? I'd imagine it would make great reading.
It seems this site doesn't work so well without JS.
1. Code examples are fetched via JS instead of being in the HTML. They're static text - there's zero reason for this.
2. The "0%" loading spinner blocks everything. It's literally just displaying a download button and some text.
3. With JS disabled, you get nothing. A language website should be the poster child for progressive enhancement.
The irony is that Ruby itself has always emphasized developer happiness and doing things "the right way." This site feels like it was built with the modern JS framework mindset rather than the Ruby philosophy.
Still, huge improvement over the 2005-era design. Just wish they'd optimized it properly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_enhancement
There were a lot of practical reasons for that: The browser landscape was much more diverse, different browsers had different support of standard Javascript, some browsers didn't even support JS and some people still kept text-only browsers like lynx/links in mind. Also browsers were not evergreen, so a large part of the audience could be on some older versions. Another thing were sometimes brittle network connection, especially over mobile. Depending on JS could in the case of corruption mean non-functioning websites.
For a lot whose exposure to web development and the discussions abound that, that reason will be stuck in their head, even if in the last decade of React ets the "best practices" will have changed.
There is also an aesthetic thing: There is a thing of beauty in simply curling an url and piping it into grep or such to get the thing you need, instead of having so have an headless browser. In my mind that is still how the web should work.
> Why the target audience of the ruby, probably primary web developers, whould do that?
In my experience, it's mostly web developers who care about this in the first place.
I’m not sure what you mean by this. We care about our users and how they use our websites. JavaScript is everywhere and has been the de facto frontend standard for the past few years. Supporting no-JS is starting to feel like supporting a new browser. As much as I’d like to, from a business and product point of view, the numbers are just too small for us to even consider it.
Maybe I'm not reading enough webdev forums. I agree though that things that don't required js should be written in no js way.