Ruby

Ruby is a programming language, meaning the written instructions a developer uses to tell a computer what to do. It was built around an unusual idea, because its creator wanted the person typing to enjoy the work, not just the machine to understand it. That is why Ruby reads a little like plain English, and why the same job takes fewer lines than in other languages.

When Ruby comes up in a business meeting, people almost always mean Ruby on Rails, a ready-made frame that sits on the language. Rails has already decided where every file goes, how the software talks to the database, and what happens when someone opens a page. A team that accepts them skips weeks of dull setup and starts on the part that is really yours. That means your booking rules, your discounts and the report your accountant asks for each month.

That is why Ruby still turns up when a first version has to exist next month. Two or three people can put something real in front of customers, watch how they use it, and change it the same week.

That speed has a price, and it rarely comes up in the sales meeting. Ruby is quick to write and fairly slow to run, so the same visitors need a bigger server than they would on PHP or JavaScript. The hosting bill therefore stays higher for the whole life of the product. That is a few dollars a month on a quiet site, and a real budget line on a busy one. The second surprise is people, because Ruby developers are rarer than PHP developers in most cities. Linkysoft has more than once taken over a Ruby system whose builder had gone, and finding the next hands took longer than the repair. So before you sign, ask the plain question and listen to the answer. Who is maintaining this in year three?

None of that makes Ruby a bad choice, but it does make it a choice with a shape. Linkysoft builds most of its web applications in PHP and JavaScript for those two reasons, and we say so when a client asks. We still look after Ruby systems that work, because rewriting software that earns money is rarely worth the bill. If you would rather not choose a language at all, one of our ready-made systems may already do the job, and the language becomes our problem. And if a phone app is coming later, say so at the start.