Ruby on Rails is far from being dead. In fact, this is a very popular choice in early-stage startups, given how fast and easily it allows them to launch their product and iterate on it.

Even at more mature companies, you'll still find a ton of opportunities. Not for internal tools or legacy codebases, but for actual production workloads: web apps, APIs, etc...

Some may tell you that Ruby doesn't scale, but is it really Ruby that doesn't scale, or the code they wrote?

Languages have trends. Sometimes, recruiters will try to take you one way or another to meet their own agenda. Don't always listen to what you hear. Long live Ruby! Long live Rails!

You can’t directly compare RnR and Javascript, since the first is a framework (Ruby would be the language), and Javascript is a language. RnR even uses quite an amount of Javascript. I think that Ruby, and Rails, are design by improving on previous languages, and shifting the perspective from speed to readability and general developer friendliness. Opposed to that, Javascript did not have any design goals at all, and seems to be repeating the errors of all language designs that existed before. “Knowing Javascript” would not be a selling point to me when hiring someone, there should be mentioned specific javascript frameworks. And I’d always try to find someone who has experience in multiple languages. So my advice is to to learn RnR first, you get a head start, Javascript will just come along with it. And you can distinct yourself from other people that claim web development knowledge because they have done one javascript tutorial :-)

I know I'm cheating by recommending both, but that's because I don't think you can go wrong either way.

I've been working with RoR full-time for the past 3.5 years and I really enjoy it. Compared to JavaScript, it's so much easier to read which is amazing from a team collaboration perspective. As for the perception that it's dead, when I recently started looking for new opportunities, I received probably an average of 10-15 calls a week from recruiters looking for people with RoR experience. Also, if you look around for average wages of developers of different languages, Ruby is fairly high up there (higher than JavaScript if I recall correctly), probably because there are fewer of us around and we can command a premium.

However, that said, if your goal is to find a full-time engineering position quickly, then JavaScipt certainly is the flavor of the month and any product with a frontend component will need it. Even our enterprise SaaS platform which didn't use a frontend framework (React, Angular, Vue, etc...) required us to integrate JS packages and write custom ones. JavaScript is probably more versatile than Ruby at the moment and it seems like new frameworks are being written for it all the time, but remember that Ruby was also the preferred language by almost all companies 5-10 years ago.

At the end of the day, I would go with the language that you enjoy writing the most as you'll be using it a lot in your workplace. If you aren't having fun at work, that's a lot of time spent suffering.

ruby got better and better, rails is outstanding. Listen David Heinemeier Hansson : https://corecursive.com/045-david-heinemeier-hansson-software-contrarian I recommend you to read Otis Meyer https://www.informit.com/store/practical-object-oriented-design-an-agile-primer-using-9780134445601#largeCover and https://eloquentjavascript.net/ Don't bother what's they say, just enjoy programming

One of the things that we I often hear since I started programming, is that languages will die. Ruby and JavaScript are both one of the most popular languages today. And popular languages just doesn’t go to the top and die.

So, F*** what people say about languages dying. Go ahead and learn both, or choose one to learn. But also learn data structures, design patterns and testing. This is basic for awesome developers and a lot are missing that.

Yo Matt,

I've been in the Ruby on Rails game for twenty years. For the last ten, Rails has been declared deceased. ;) But in reality, Rails is still going strong. The jobs are highly paid and fun. All the pros you list are valid. Yes it is a beautiful language, the OO makes sense, it's dynamic and expressive, and the ecosystem is top shelf. What's to dislike? There are a lot of Rails websites out there. And new ones get created every day too.

Now, to address the elephant in the room....

Ruby is quirky. Since the syntax is pretty different from PHP, and core developers being opinionated, some people just see drama. When Node.JS got slightly usable, they moved over to that. Node.JS is very c/PHP-like after all in its syntax. Many engineering managers will just select the ecosystem that is biggest. Node.JS is a lot bigger. But if you don't care about going a little off the beaten path sometimes, Ruby in my opinion still, after all this time, gives me joy when I use it.

Also important: to this day, I can build everything I want. Ruby, Rails and many gems are being actively maintained. Security vulnerabilities are discovered and corrected. New developments still find their way into the language. For myself, I know that the anemic JS standard library would just frustrate me to no end.... every wheel is invented time and again. Ruby's standard library isn't as voluminous, but it's a lot more diverse and useful.

Since you are trying to make a Roblox game, you have no other option than to use Lua, since Roblox only allows coding in Lua. Yes, you've heard right, Python is identical and as easy as Lua, although Lua is easier than Python. Beginning from Lua and then escalating to Python is recommended. Java is only helpful when you are creating a heavy, big-budget, enterprise-level product, otherwise, Python would suffice.

If you really hate lua check out roblox-ts, a tool that compiles typescript code into roblox lua. https://github.com/roblox-ts/roblox-ts