Matthew Lang

Don’t be afraid to challenge prospective clients with goals. Make them work to prove that they’re really the right clients for you. Be bold.

— Curtis McHale by Curtis McHale

Read on for the full background story.

... here's The Art of Manliness with their take on kaizen.

The Kaizen approach to self-improvement completely circumvents the unproductive ups and downs all too common to the quest. By breaking down big, overwhelming goals into super small, discrete pieces, Kaizen encourages action. The small successes you experience with your baby steps feed on each other and start building some momentum, which leads to taking bigger and bigger actions.

— Get 1% Better Every Day: The Kaizen Way to Self-Improvement
by The Art of Manliness

Nicholas Bate with more thought provoking lists of wisdom.

Darker nights mean no more sun blessed evening rides, well at least until next year. Going to make an effort to get a few more bikes rides under my belt in the evening and enjoy the last days of summer.

Ethan's back at school today. Having to adjust to the house being quiet again. Back to work for me as well I suppose.

Patrick's journey on the Buddhist Noble Eightfold Path continues with the right livelihood.

I use the concept of Right Livelihood to remind me to keep my focus on doing work that contributes to the greater good, that is meaningful and helpful to those that choose to purchase my products and services, to humbly realize that any failures or successes will be fleeting, and that the most mindful path is to simply continue to do good work.

— Right Livelihood
by Patrick Rhone

It’s a question that I’m seeing on an increasing basis as I venture through the Internet. I’ve seen it appear on a few forum sites and it has appeared in a couple of newsletters that I subscribe to.

Before we answer the question, let’s take a brief look at the history of Rails. 10 years ago the first version of Ruby on Rails dropped. It caused a stir due to the ease with which web applications could be made. In that time it’s moved on through four major versions, had hundreds of releases and has been the collective work of hundreds of software developers who have devoted their free time to making Ruby on Rails what it is today.

Since then there’s been a search for the next killer web framework that will replace Ruby on Rails. 10 years on I’d say we’re still waiting. No other web framework has had the impact that Ruby on Rails has.

So is Ruby on Rails still relevant?

Definitely yes. While a lot of developers have adopted and then moved onto other languages and frameworks, there is still a large amount of developers that specialise in Ruby on Rails. The market for Ruby on Rails developers for full-time and contract work is still healthy. There’s also still a large amount of companies and organisations that need Ruby on Rails developers to maintain web applications and there’s still a demand for these developers with Greenfield projects as well.

It’s not as highly a sought after as it was maybe five years ago, but it’s still a relevant technology as well as a mature technology. It’s been tried and tested by many developers and it’s benefits for building web applications is well known now. Given that companies would rather not risk building an application in a new and unfamiliar technology, Ruby on Rails is now seen as a mature web framework that has grown up over the years.

Ruby on Rails will be relevant for at least the next five years and possibly the next ten years. From there, who knows. As long as it is a low-risk technology for clients, I’ll keep recommending Rails for projects that it is a good fit for.