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Comment by jimmyjames | Hacker News Reader

Rails has been "exploding" for years now, but it's still absolutely nowhere to be found in most job boards, so for all intents and purposes, it is a niche.

I'm glad to see it grow because it contains a lot of very interesting ideas, but at this point, it's pretty clear that it will never become as popular as other "web frameworks" (using the term loosely here) such as PHP, ASP.net or some of the many Java frameworks...

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it's still absolutely nowhere to be found in most job boards

Strange, considering there are always Rails jobs on craigslist in every major city and on all startup boards. Hell, I don't even actively seek out contract work and have offers on a weekly basis (in person, not even counting online) from people looking for Ruby/Python web development.

PHP, ASP.net or some of the many Java frameworks...

So? You put stock in argumentum ad populum? Hell, why not rip on Django while you're at it, considering there are far fewer Django jobs than Rails jobs? Nevermind the fact that despite Python and Ruby web frameworks being less widely used than PHP overall they are still very strongly represented among the most successful and innovative web projects of the past decade.

<shrug>

Feel free to use whatever metric makes you feel good, all I'm saying is that the number of jobs for Java, PHP, Javascript and ASP.net (yes, even Basic) absolutely dwarfs those for Ruby on Rails.

So, by lumping together four (or five) different platforms, you manage to come up with a number that is larger than those using Rails? That's not entirely surprising.

You're also counting Javascript, which I find odd. Javascript is used in ALL of those platforms, so including it in an argument is extremely unfair. I do some Javascript programming from time to time, but I also spend a fair amount of time in Rails. When I was doing PHP and ASP.net programming, we were also using Javascript. So, yeah, there are going to be more jobs for front-end developers than those who program in some back-end platform, because all sites need some sort of a front-end (excluding some project that's purely an API).

There's also a dilution of programming jobs for the aforementioned platforms, from my experience. Finding a job doing Rails seems to be fairly easy as, even though it was the "next big thing", the average programmer felt better sticking with Java, PHP, or ASP.net. There are way more Java programmers than there are Rails programmers, but it seems the ratio of programmers to programming jobs seems to be more in the favor of Rails.

    So, by lumping together four (or five) different platforms, you manage to come up with a number that is larger than those using Rails? That's not entirely surprising.

I think he meant "either of these by itself".

I agree with that last point, I have a few friends doing consulting for RoR and they don't seem to have any problems finding work, but then again, neither do COBOL developers.

RoR developers are as hard to find as RoR jobs, so I stand by my initial claim that RoR has become a niche framework.

What is your point? Based on your straight 0 ratings in this thread, hating on Rails is also a niche. So what?

If you believe Hiring is Obsolete (http://www.paulgraham.com/hiring.html), then the jobs argument is pointless. If you don't, then you can always remember the Python Paradox (http://www.paulgraham.com/pypar.html) the language to learn, if you want to get a good job, is a language that people don't learn merely to get a job.

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