The year I got my Ruby Hero award was the year that I (partially) convinced core team members to name the RC release of Rails “race car” because Dave ditched us to play Max Verstappen. He didn’t come to RailsConf because of a race.
The years he did come, he usually will come be there for his keynote, maybe see him at dinner, and then he’s gone. Everyone else is pumped to be there. Core and contributors show up, actually go to talks for all the days, conduct birds of a feather sessions and hack and chat.
On the day that 1/3 of basecamp quit I had a realization that he really just didn’t care about us. We were resources to be exploited.
I still really like the rails community, but it keeps feeling like Dave wants that to be exclusively defined around him. Which doesn’t feel like a community.
> We were resources to be exploited.
This is uncharitable. DHH have you the gift of Rails. He does not want to give you the gift of participating in the community. That is okay!
I don't know much about Rails, but my guess would be that DHH poured insane amounts of time, effort, and caring into Rails. Is that not enough?
I did want to speak to this though
> gave you rails
As I see it Dave released rails, Yehudah gave us GOOD rails, and Raphael gave us functional, stable rails.
That original release wasn’t in a vaccuum either, he had coders at 37 signals.
My post isn’t about being anti-Dave but being pro the-people-who-bleed-rails the ACTUAL maintainers. I would say something like “it’s the difference between a general and boots on the ground soldiers” but, that would imply much more involvement then I actually saw.
It’s like he never gave them (enough) credit, and continued to not give them credit or recognition. That is, until things got so bad with his PR that he felt compelled to make some token gestures. And he’s struggled at those.
The exploitation comment isn’t about the work we did. We did that gladly. The community was better. We didn’t do it for pay, but we did it for something. And it’s not that Dave didn’t want to give us whatever it is we wanted, it’s that he never really cared enough to find out.
Again, it’s hard to convey the feeling through words. I’m grateful for him for the things he’s given me. I’m also wanting to recognize what he’s done to others who have also given me things. I can hold onto both at the same time.