#dhh

This was the flagship keynote for the framework’s premier gathering, and it felt less like an affirmation of Rails’ future and more like an intellectual abandonment of its foundational craft, delivered by a creator increasingly insulated from the core community that used, supported, and helped build Rails alongside him.

The tent is being made smaller. To stay in the tent going forward you will increasingly be forced to agree with David. I’ve been involved with Ruby for seventeen years: why am I the one being pushed out in order to make space for toxic and abusive dudes?

Here’s a dude who barely had any time to confront the world before failing into an infinite money glitch in the form of Ruby on Rails, Jeff Bezos throwing him crazy money, Apple bundling his software as a highlighted feature, becoming a “new work” celebrity and Silicon Valley “Guru”. Is it any surprise that such a person later would find the most minuscule kind of opposition as an all-out attack on his self-image?

Omarchy feels like a project created by a Linux newcomer, utterly captivated by all the cool things that Linux can do, but lacking the architectural knowledge to get the basics right, and the experience to give each tool a thoughtful review. Instead of carefully selecting software and ensuring that everything works as promised, the approach seems to be more about throwing everything that somehow looks cool into a pile. There’s no attention to sensible defaults, no real quality control, and certainly no verification that the setup won’t end up causing harm or, at the very least, frustration for the user. The primary focus seems to be on creating a visually appealing but otherwise hollow product.

Omarchy is a reminder that we live in a world where software isn’t just software, but the people who make it. And dhh, despite his rep as a dev’s dev, comes with a hell of a lot of baggage. Recently, the Ruby on Rails community has been through some things, and dhh himself has proven a lightning rod on multiple occasions, most recently for a post many saw as deeply xenophobic, bordering on eugenicist.

Silence and appeasement is only emboldening DHH to ratchet up the toxicity and allowing the damage to continue. Perhaps if enough of those in positions of power call him out on his bullshit he’ll at at least follow his own advice and keep his politics to himself. More importantly though, it will send a clear message to the wider Ruby community (and those who may be considering joining it) that the majority does not stand with DHH and his toxic views.