The next evolution of Rails isn't going to be a unicorn, according to David Heinemeier Hansson. In this keynote address at the 2007 RailsConf, Hansson talks about what the Rails community has and where it's going, and the gradual improvements Rails will see in the coming years.
Fundamentally, there is no more need for radical change all of the time. Hansson warns of the dangers of thinking of anything 2.0. It needs to be real, not a complete rewrite or magical unicorn. Instead, Rails will focus on what makes it great, and taking advantage of the building excitement both in the community and commercial spheres.
The greatest success of Rails is that it gets users involved. Plugin development is booming, and there is a large community of experienced developers helping those new to the language. Increasing numbers of books are being released in many languages, and third tier companies have started targeting Ruby developers. A measured development of the Rails framework will ensure its continued popularity.
David Heinemeier Hansson is a programmer and evangelist of Less Software. He's the creator of applications like Instiki, Basecamp, and Ta-da, and works with the open source community and design extraordinaires 37signals. Since its release in late July 2004, he's also been leading the development of Ruby on Rails, a web application framework and environment for building real-world applications with joy and less code than most frameworks spend doing XML sit-ups.
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