Rails is still a ghetto (possibly nsfw)

"If you’re a Rails programmer, or a Ruby programmer, and you don’t decry this sort of thing, you have no business calling yourself a professional. It doesn’t matter how large your website is, how easy it was to write, how much better it is over PHP or ASP.NET or J2EE; by definition, you do not belong to a professional community. That’s all there is to it. It’s incumbent on every Ruby programmer to either reject this sort of misogynistic sewage, or accept that you’re never going to advance the promotion of Rails in the public perception because members of the community still think it’s edgy or cool to put pictures of strippers in their public presentations. And here’s a hint: if your decided reaction is to talk about how unimportant this is, how much it doesn’t matter, or how much it doesn’t offend you personally, you probably don’t understand professionalism at all."

> "[Matt] had no idea [the pictures he used] are problematic in anyone’s book"

That's completely ridiculous. How old is this guy and has he ever had a job? There is something terribly wrong with education if professional interaction and respect are not getting passed on.

See the discussion "How to Give a VC a Hard-on". Which got, hmm, 44 people to upvote it here?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=526518

I'll stop before I commit unintentional feminism and they take away Vast Right Wing Conspiracy card.

EDIT: Definitely off-topic, but does anybody have any experience with CouchDB/Rails? If so, what are the pros/cons...

However, where the author completely loses me is when he clearly says (to paraphrase), "if it offends anyone, don't do it".

That's wrong. Trying to please everyone will constantly keep you trapped in a cycle of mediocrity. Being entrapped and essentially enslaved by the most conservative members of a professional group or the public at large is utterly stupid.

Even the example given, taking off shoes to go into a temple, is marginally appropriate at best. By going into that temple, you've decided to enter the zone of another culture, you are on their turf. It's basic decency to remove your shoes.

By going to 4chan, you've also entered another zone. Prepare for teenage boys trying their best to wank all over your screen, but don't complain about it. Teenage boys are teenage boys.

By going to a rails conference, you most certainly are entering a cultural zone too, and you sure as hell better have your hazmat suit on. Maybe there's a lesson to be learned here, but that lesson is not in this article, this article just wants to homogenize everything.

It's too bad the author doesn't take the women's rights approach, as that may be more easy to argue. The 'you offend me' or 'you hurt my feelings' card is extremely weak, especially in an opinionated, anti-conventional (or so it sees itself) community such as the ruby/rails crowd. In all honesty, if you refrain from this because 'someone may get offended', then where do you stop? Do you edit out all the cursing? there's lots of that in the Rails community. Do you speak only strictly in formal language? Present only in suits? I'm sure I can find people who think absence of any of these is problematic. But so what? There will always be someone who is offended.

And then comes the Buddhism analogy. Yes, I will take my shoes off when I enter the temple, because I am an outsider. But maybe a buddhist insider has the expreience, influence and respect to innovate in terms of Buddhist tradition, where I would be considered sacrilegious. To make things more difficult, 'proffesionalism' is derrived from 'professional'. It's simply a function of what most professionals do. That's why you don't call them 'professionalists', followers of 'professionalism'. I doubt the author can find a definition of professional that has anything to do with presentation style. Apparently, these ruby/rails/couchdb professionals make presentations like this. If that were unacceptable, then how would the professional presentation of someone from the Adult industry look like? Blured-out product images?

I'm not necessarily taking a stand on the topic itself, as I said, there may be better ways to argue. I am just noting an extremely weak argument on the part of the author.

I have never met Matt, but I know him through several open source projects, and I have watched him answer question after question-day after day-to anyone and everyone looking for help on irc. It really grinds my gears when people talk about throwing him under the bus b/c he pushed it a little too far in one presentation. And it's unprofessional.

He's a wordy complainer. Thats all, folks.