With Ruby on Rails popularity growing, a developer hopes to foster new interest

Mat Schaffer says that back in 2005, Ruby on Rails, then a new, open-source web developer framework, had everything he was looking for.

“I think Ruby on Rails strikes the best balance of ease of getting started and ease of maintenance. There are a lot of other frameworks. Others lean a little heavy on getting started, like PHP, or on maintainability once it has launched, like Java,” he says.
Ruby, the language itself, was developed in Japan by Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, but it wasn’t until David Heinemeier Hansson, partner at 37Signals, developed Rails, the framework for developing web apps, that the application took off in the West, Schaffer says.
Six years later, Schaffer has been doing full-time professional work with the framework since March of last year with his company Mashion. Schaffer is also a primary organizer at Philly.RB, a meetup group dedicated to the language and framework. The group meets on the second Tuesday of every month at Drexel, and also has a weekly hack night on Mondays. He’s in discussions with the University of Pennsylvania about creating a 1-credit course for students to learn the framework, which is growing in popularity.
So, why should web developers make the jump?

Schaffer’s decision to begin using Ruby on Rails came in part because the community backing Rails has an accepting, non-snarky approach to helping new users, he says. Second, there’s an increasing number of companies seeking Rails developers.
“A lot of startups started coming into the picture saying we need to do this in Rails. It started to get bigger, and the number of developers hasn’t met the need,” he says. Some larger enterprise companies are starting to look to Rails development, too, he says. “The demand is greater than the supply right now.”
On Friday during Philly Tech Week, Schaffer will be teaching an all-afternoon beginner’s course on Ruby on Rails. There will be a general introduction to Rails lecture, a session on installing Rails, and some basic web development practice. Lunch will be provided, and Schaffer says anyone with a working knowledge of HTML and forms should come.
“I’m hoping that they can install Rails and leave the class with a basic app. Enough to continue the experience,” he says.