This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Ruby Buzz by Obie Fernandez. Original Post: The High Maintenance Ruby Mainstream Feed Title: Obie On Rails (Has It Been 9 Years Already?) Feed URL: http://jroller.com/obie/feed/entries/rss Feed Description: Obie Fernandez talks about life as a technologist, mostly as ramblings about software development and consulting. Nowadays it's pretty much all about Ruby and Ruby on Rails. Latest Ruby Buzz Posts Latest Ruby Buzz Posts by Obie Fernandez Latest Posts From Obie On Rails (Has It Been 9 Years Already?)

The latest issue of ACM Communications has an interesting report on IT stereotypes (membership required), and how closely they match the reality reported by their sampling of real IT professionals. The stereotype High Maintenance IT Professional, has the following needs:

• High pay and benefits
• Interesting work
• Recognition
• Opportunities for growth and development

In their report the authors ended up placing 36% of their sample into the High Maintenance group because they strongly matched the attributes listed above. The rest of the sample was placed into the Lifestyle group (25%) and the Committed group (39%).

I find this information timely in relation to the ongoing debate on whether Rails will become mainstream or not (or that we probably don't want it to, whatever mainstream might ultimately mean being left up to the discernment of the reader). In my experience, most of people adopting Ruby and Rails fit the High Maintenance stereotype perfectly.

What about the ones that didn't meet the stereotype? I think they are characterized by career traits incompatible with Rails adoption.

Members of the Committed group are not interested in achievement-oriented incentives. Their job is "just a job", with non-work concerns, including family and community activities taking higher priority over learning a new technology that is not immediately needed.

The Committed group are primarily interested in job security. I interpreted the sample results for this group as characteristic of employees that do "exactly what they're told to do" by their managers and technical superiors. Are these folks going to push for Ruby adoption anytime soon? Yeah, probably not.

I think that employers with large numbers of High Maintenance people (like my own employer) will adopt Ruby and Rails, probably in large numbers over the coming years. That's mainstream enough for me. That's more than enough people to preserve the critical mass that drives innovation, create new jobs for all my Ruby friends and eyeballs for my Ruby-related publications.

Frankly, the other 64% of my peers should just keep on doing what they're doing and everyone will be happy in the long run.