This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Ruby Buzz
by David Heinemeier Hansson.
Original Post: Rails takes Ruby higher than Python
Feed Title: Loud Thinking
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Feed Description: All about the full-stack, web-framework Rails for Ruby and on putting it to good effect with Basecamp
Tim O'Reilly crunched the numbers from BookScan and the results are stunning. Ruby book sales have exploded. In total, Ruby is up 1,552% over last year in the same period. That's one thousand, five hundred, and fifty two percent. Holy smokes. It's insane!
To bring that number into perspective, Ruby books are now selling better than Python books. Which of course is the first time that ever happened. And that language was not even standing still. Python is up 20% over last year. At the same time, Perl is down 3%, Java down 4%. So its no wonder we have a feeling that the duo of modern, dynamic languages are taking off. It's because they are!
Tim muses on why Ruby is seeing this incredible surge:
Ruby on Rails is indeed, as Jonathan suggests, the driver of the interest in Ruby, which, after all, has been around for years without generating the kind of surge it's seen in the past six months. But as you can see, we're on the fence about whether or not Python has an answer to RoR (and we're not even asking the question about Perl!)
Naturally, I'm radiating with pride of having had the opportunity to bring the most beautiful programming language I know to the top of mind share. And it feels like we're just getting starting.
There's just a singlebook out on Ruby on Rails right now. And only one recent Ruby book covering 1.8. Compare that to the wealth of titles available for Python, Perl, and Java. Now imagine what those numbers will look like when the market is flooded with new titles in the beginning of the new year.
On top of that, we got a pipeline of killer announcements ready to keep the momentum going. Ruby has just started its ascend. Sure, it's a rocket take-off, but we haven't even left the atmosphere yet.
Again: 1,552% up, bigger than Python, just two books pulling the load, just getting started. This thing is riding the tip, baby.
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