Big Think Interview With David Heinemeier Hansson:
Some of the questions asked:
What inspired you to create Rails?
Ruby on Rails lowers the technical expertise necessary to create a web application; is expertise becoming less critical?
How simple can things get in terms of programming?
Do you think any company can dominate the Web the way Microsoft dominated computers circa 1992?
What do you make of Apple’s mandate that all apps for iOS devices be written in specific languages?
There’s a transcript of the interview available and this summary (excerpted below) offers links to specific parts of the video.
Hannson also talked about the highly anticipated release of Rails 3, saying they’re “incredibly close” to unveiling it. And he admitted to us that he feels “let down personally” by Apple’s choice to restrict what programming languages can be used for smart phone apps. It was an “insecure move,” which Hansson finds strange because Apple is “winning on their merits.” It’s another case of absolute power corrupting absolutely, just like with Microsoft in the 90s, even though now Microsoft is “irrelevant” to Hansson.
37signals wrote this on Aug 05 2010 There are 11 comments.
Kevin Haggerty 05 Aug 10
Reading the transcript now, thank goodness for Safari Reader. Nice interview!
Bryan Sebastian 05 Aug 10
I thought this was a really interesting interview. Being a (mostly) Microsoft Visual Studio developer, the discussion about c# and Microsoft’s stack really got me thinking about some of the stuff David said and in the end I have to agree.
For me personally, I think the parts of Microsoft’s stack that I use are really good. BUT , David’s comments made me realize I only use about 5% (if that) of the .NET stack and it seems they continually slop crap on top of it with each new release. It is too bad that they don’t realize that less can be more sometimes. I know it’s a cliché, but it holds true sometimes.
Dan McGee 05 Aug 10
Great interview David. I liked the part about comparing ruby to French.
Olivier Hericord 05 Aug 10
great interview … agree on mostly every thing. I agree on david point of the web being a middle ground thing between desktop app and a static web. I agree with david about the javascritp side and ajax but it fails to mention things like sproutcore and cappucino … these things coupled with node.js can really transform the web . not to a destop thing but to something more mature and more pleasant to program with.
i would love to ear david about these frameworks
BradM 05 Aug 10
"This is just a warehouse of shit"
That’s my favorite quote. I want that on a T-Shirt.
Franz 06 Aug 10
German ugliest natural language? Well, to you maybe. I don’t think Schiller or Goethe would agree. But who are they ;)
DavidO 06 Aug 10
Agreed. Great line and point. Enjoyed the insight David.
Daniel 06 Aug 10
David, you really dislike the Germans, huh? I could have sworn you described the protectionist sentiment toward amateur/newbie programmers as “The Bavarians are at the gate!” instead of “the barbarians are at the gate” :)
In all seriousness though: Great interview. I have a friend who’s very much in the other camp when it comes to programming languages. He doesn’t want to let the barbarians into the castle. He believes that languages like Ruby just pollute the pristine world of “real” programmers like him, because it’s “too easy” (and don’t get him started on Rails). He also thinks that object orientation is basically ridiculous and prefers purely functional languages that I simply can’t grasp. So we’re poles apart, really.
Though I doubt it’ll sway him I’ll point him to this video. You make the same points as I’ve tried to make, only more succinctly.
Last thought: If you want to talk about fear of unwashed masses, remember the labcoat-clad mainframe operators back in the day. They had nothing but scorn for personal computers, and their “enemies” really were a bunch of unwashed hippies. And we all know how that turned out (thanks, hippies!)
Jon 07 Aug 10
I love it. I always love to hear david’s philosiphy on things.
I don’t quite follow how apple’s protectionism of platform comes as any type of suprise. that is how they have rolled since the 80’s. Ultimately this “forcing” of people is the reason why microsoft ended up with the monopoly in the first place.
tbw 08 Aug 10
Direct and blunt. Just as we like like it. Keep it coming DHH .
Ryan Thompson 10 Aug 10
This was such an incredible interview I hardly know what to say. In the name of the great Bizmarkee, “Rock , rock on.”
-@RyanThompson
This discussion is closed.