Growth in Ruby Jobs Relative to Java
A big thank you to Reg for linking to this graph. Update: Since David F. Glasser, one of DZone's preeminent Java bigots, was so easily threatened and flustered by a graph of this "relative" nature, here is the absolute version for comparison. Nobody is disputing the fact that there are significantly less jobs doing Ruby in the marketplace and no deception was intended in posting the relative version. In fact, I left off the commentary so that I would not be accused of "hyping". Guess that didn't work.
Oh, please.
Rate of growth means nothing without context. If go from 1 to 3, my rate of growth is 200%. If I go from 1000 to 1200, my rate of growth is 20%. Smaller rate? Sure. But if that's the number of available jobs that take advantage of a particular technology, the obvious correct place to focus your time and energy is with the lower growth rate technology. A person's time isn't infinite and you need to invest yours in the places that are more likely to pay off.
This reminds me of the time I heard the Trancendental Meditation Party call itself the "Fastest growing political party in the US". Care to bet me, say, $100,000 that their candidate won't win the presidency?
Posted by: TWR | January 27, 2008 at 12:09 AM
Ok, I will agree with this: this kind of comparison is very poor to say the least. On the other hand, let's keep up with the non-scientific toying and do a more 'fair' comparison. It is a fact that today, Rails is driving the Ruby job trends. Java has a much broader audience, going from mobile devices, to low-level system integration and a lot of other stuff that Rails doesn't cover.
If we stay at the niche in hand: Web Development, we have to compare Ruby against, for example, "java web" (with the quotes). This narrows down the Java job offers to the Web niche and the comparison becomes much more interesting. Just try it out.
The problem is the indeed.com (or other job trends website for that matter) doesn't have advanced drill down options enough to get a fair comparison.
Posted by: AkitaOnRails | January 27, 2008 at 01:57 AM
Akita,
Dice.com: "java web" - 632, java web - 8890. "Java web" is just funny. Even struts gets over 2000. Look at http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=ruby%2C+jsf%2C+wicket&l=&relative=1
Obie's graph means nothing, but dice.com numbers mean Rails is still a ghetto and must fight with PHP & Python, not Java.
Posted by: Chapaev | January 27, 2008 at 07:34 AM
And then again, as I said, this tells nothing, you're right. It is the same old argument again. I've seen this back in 1994. "Real programmers do C++, not Java". The market is the right size: it has enough good jobs for the amount of programmers available and both are growing up. The difference is that we don't have the same Internet Bubble as the one that started back in 1998 forward, so the growth will not be as dramatic, that's all.
Posted by: AkitaOnRails | January 28, 2008 at 02:39 AM
You know Rails advocates are getting desperate when they start using the same lines as the Linux crowd to defend the object of their affection...
So, Obie, will 2008 be the "Year of Rails"? That would complete the analogy :-)
Posted by: Observer | January 28, 2008 at 11:35 AM
@Observer: Please spare us the baloney.... Rails advocates are not desperate for anything.
Posted by: Obie Fernandez | January 28, 2008 at 11:51 AM
@Observer. Two things:
1) Ruby, Rails, Python or whatever don't HAVE to have the biggest share of the market. If it eventually gets it, so be it. Otherwise, there are good jobs popping up all the time for those that are capable of handling them.
2) You sound like a Java programmer? Just remember that once upon a time, people like Obie, myself and others passed through this same thing when Java was near nothing. You do know that it had to start from zero, more than 13 years ago. I was there. I remember when it was the C programmers that laughed at us. You have a job now because we stood on what we believed was very good at the time.
It is a chicken and egg situation: if everybody just wait until there is enough jobs available, who says the customers will make such jobs if they know there are no programmers available to take them? Someone has to start first. Once again, people like Obie are doing it. Again.
Posted by: AkitaOnRails | January 28, 2008 at 11:59 AM
No, I'm a RoR developer actually, and I enjoy making money off it. A few years ago, I was really hoping it would become mainstream, but I have given up now. I'll keep using as long as I can find jobs (pretty easy in the Bay Area, not so sure about the rest of the country), but I can switch to whatever is needed and fun whenever the RoR stream will dry up and I won't be bitter about it (a bit sad, though, I really like RoR).
Akita, you really seem to admire Obie a lot (you seem to see him as a visionary who's ahead of the curve and it's only a matter of months before everybody acknowledges that... right?). This kind of irrational feeling is dangerous to our profession. In my experience, technology (and people) are not worth falling in love for. Stay objective, it's the best favor you can do to your clients.
And Obie: you say you're not being defensive, but check out the topics of your posts this past month... Pretty telling, no?
Posted by: Observer | January 28, 2008 at 12:34 PM
@Observer, ok, sorry for the Java label. Not intended to be offensive as I am a former Java developer myself. And yes, I do admire Obie, but no I, do not take whatever he says as doctrine or something like that. I also don't agree with these graphs being a good argument for anything, my point was just that. I don't know if Rails will grow faster or not, and I don't really care. For that matter, I enjoy working with RoR. If tomorrow it dies, no hard feelings as well. For one, it will not be a sudden death, the kind that I will wake up one morning and find the Earth devastated. This kind of trend follow a more or less recognizable curve. You know that. And while I am doing RoR I do Love it. No one can be a good craftsman without loving his craft. You don't need to be paranoid about it. It's like what Yoda says: "Do it, or do not, there is no try". What will come tomorrow? Haskell, Erlang? Let them come. I've been through many technologies that died already. I saw languages and frameworks coming and going. None of them was the Messiah and none of them will be. That's all. No point in being a negativist.
Posted by: AkitaOnRails | January 28, 2008 at 01:44 PM
I don't think RoR will die any time soon, I just think it found its niche and it will plateau in that niche for a long time, not growing and not shrinking. I'm pretty sure it will die off way before Java does, though, and the recent backlashes of the kind that Twitter has inflicted upon the credibility of RoR (and the fact that Twitter has now moved away from RoR) certainly doesn't help.
[Obie's note: Twitter has not inflicted anything negative onto RoR lately, any problems they have are nothing to do with the web layer. It is also a blatant lie and FUD that Twitter has moved off of RoR and we should nip that one in the bud.]
As for the Java label, I certainly don't take it as an insult: I still program in Java every day and I like it just as much as RoR. I just think that RoR has a long way to go before it can catch up to Java both in terms of mindshare and technological achievements, and by now, I just don't think it will ever happen.
Still, RoR is a lot of fun to use, but more like a toy than a credible large scale environment.
Posted by: Observer | January 28, 2008 at 01:58 PM