Ruby on Rails: The Documentary

Ruby on Rails has one of the most faithful communities online, it also has one of the most controversial, rabble-rousing creators out there, Danish programmer, David Heinemeier Hansson. Widely known as DHH, David tells us how Rails went from a crazy idea to one of the most talked-about full-stack frameworks over the course of 20 years.

Get the whole spill by the people who had a front-row seat to the creation and development of Ruby on Rails. Jeremy Daer, Jason Fried, Tobias Lütke, Jamis Buck, and… DHH tell the tale of Rails. A tale seeped with passion, pushback, and (after Rails 3.0) maturity.

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YouTube: @railsofficial

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[RamiGB]

Rails have changed my life, literally! it gave me a job that turned into a career that made me immigrate to another country and start a family. Love you guys will always do <3.

[atstockland]

I've been a solo developer on a large project for over ten years. I've been using Rails basically the entire time. A genuine thank you to the Rails contributors for allowing me to do that and for teaching me how to do it correctly. Shout out to Ryan Bates for really helping me get rolling. I think RailsCasts deserves a mention on this timeline due to his influence on so many people and helping the Rails' trajectory.

[alexeycherkashin]

0:24 How Jason Fried met DHH
2:53 David's relationships with programming
4:18 Jason and David meet for the first time in person
5:11 Basecamp idea and execution
6:38 How and why Ruby was chosen for the project
9:24 How Rails framework was born
11:47 Rails started to take off
13:51 How Jeremy Daer jumped in
15:58 Jamis Buck's turn
17:26 First year of the Rails development
20:37 Rails marketing
22:15 Tobias Lütke first feelings about Rails
25:46 How the core team was built
28:01 Rails should be open-sourced. Period
30:25 Jamis'es baby: Capistrano
31:13 Key moments of early Rails development (1)
32:17 "Rails can't scale" thing 🙄
35:29 Security side
35:51 Key moments of early Rails development (2)
36:43 Suddenly, competitor: Merb 😱
38:06 Rails x100 times better...
39:34 Unique community like nowhere else
40:34 Jeremy's tears 🥲
40:44 Jason's reflection on how Rails became real
41:09 From Hello World to IPO
41:35 Tobias shot outs to David
42:12 Rails for those are... (watch it!)

[BeeRich]

Developers everywhere should note the beginning. These guys were helpful and positive. Too many devs have egos that close out others that might be learning a topic, including a language. Too many devs forget that working with others means being nice, if you want to optimize your work. I've seen devs fired because they thought their own personal tech-savvy nature would solidify their position within a company. It just alienated everybody. Drop the arrogance, and it will help you immensely.

[thenth]

Thank you for these documentaries. it really rare for me to find people that I can a 100% relate to. You have a way of letting people tell their stories and not direct their naratives, at least in a visible way. It is tech people talking to tech people, humanely. It's beautiful.

[SupeRails]

2017-2021 really felt like the "Dark ages" for Rails, and now with Rails 7 we indeed entered the Renaissance era! 🎨👩‍🎨
Thank you Rails Core and everybody who contributed! 🤗

[laughyourashevilleoff]

I'm 37 (coincidence?!) and learning programming (Ruby, then Rails, natch) for the first time because I've had so much joy using Hey and Basecamp and want to learn to make these kinds of things myself. Never too old to get started! Thank you for sharing so much about your process w the world. Y'all are awesome and inspiring.

[mattskelton]

As a PHP dev I have immense respect for Ruby/Rails and their community. Love to see underrated programming languages thrive. Keep on building great software and never look back.

[WolfPhoenix]

I want to extend a huge thank you to the Rails Core team. I've been working with Ruby on Rails for nearly a decade and absolutely love it.

It's no exaggeration to say that without Ruby on Rails, my career would be significantly different from what it is today. I probably wouldn't have ever learned Ruby, much less program in it as my daily job if it wasn't for all of you. Just know that you truly made a difference in this man's life!

[jopmota]

Rails has being paying my bills for 20 years and i couldn't be more grateful to all the hands that have been improving this technology for so many years

[dennisdashkevich]

What a great piece of work this Ruby on Rails documentary is – seeing this bunch of beautiful people behind the early days of the Rails framework! It was both so emotional and motivating to me I can't even express. This has also brought back sweet memories of my first encounter with Ruby back in late 2011 after writing some university labs in C++ for a while and preparing to get a job in Java, haha. So I can't be thankful enough to all these people and David himself for making it possible to create a career in programming because of Rails and to write in a language I truly love and productive with!

[Jasona]

Starting with Rails 2006, doing it until 2015 and now coming back to it … things could not be better. Keep going, this is not only a framework, it's one of the most opinionated movements, that we actually really need.

[thejimzim]

I began my own Ruby and Rails journey in late 2006 and these people were heroes to me. This was an extraordinarily exciting time to be a developer. Watching this has reignited a fire of optimism. Thank you for capturing and presenting this history in such an inspiring way.

[leonamorim]

I also want to thank DHH and the entire Rails team and community. I started working as a Ruby on Rails developer in 2019, today I work at another company starting a project from scratch, now in production. The company is super happy because the app runs super well. Before, I was a PHP programmer and when I switched to Ruby On Rails, it was a turning point for me in creating really quality applications. I'm very happy to work with Rails. Thank you very much for making our day so much better. Thank you very much! ❤🙏

[charlesbcraig]

I remember being taught Java and then found Python. That was neat, but then I found Ruby and was blown away. I became the Ruby guy on campus and know one understood. Eventually I got into Rails and was blown away again. Yeah I don’t use it today, but I’ll never forget the joy it brought!

[david_from_to]

Great documentary and thank you Rails! The framework helped us get our little startup off the ground extremely quickly back in 2007! We ended up growing the company to over 400+ employees (1/3 of which are in the SW Engineering department), while Rails still powered one of our core backend systems :)

[realgengiskhan]

Thank you David for this literal gem.
Although I've been lost in the maze of JS, Go, and Python for almost 10 years, I'm now coming back more and more to Ruby and Rails.
This place is like a peaceful island in a world of programmers chasing trivia, just like the real world.
Rails is definitely the best-designed web framework, the first of its kind, and the one that best allows you to focus on real-world ideas.
And Ruby has been the only language that has offered me so much productivity, fun and creative freedom. Special thanks also to Matz, eternally.

[gradientO]

It's a great time to be a dev with such high quality documentaries. Honeypot! ❤

[Chris-Lee-Beard]

Doing Rails since 2006 and still in the camp advocating for it.
It changed my life and I totally understand the perspective of excitement Rails still creates.

[nishiit]

A big shoutout to the creators of this documentary! Ruby on Rails holds a special place in my heart and this video beautifully encapsulated why.