Urban male hipsters love old men and Ruby programming

(written by lawrence krubner, however indented passages are often quotes). You can contact lawrence at: lawrence@krubner.com, or follow me on Twitter.

I was thinking about Ruby On Rails and male hipsters and wondering if there was a cultural affinity that brought male hipsters to Ruby in particular (out of all the possible computer programming languages). I decided there was. I notice a lot of male hipsters are into the idea of the old master, the old man who is great at some skill: A great tailor, a great leather worker, a great wood carver, a great painter, a great sculptor, etc. Male hipsters seem to have an affinity for that particular understanding of craftsmanship. And of course, many male hipsters assume that they too will grow up and become great masters of some skill. Even when this is just a pose, it seems to be a popular pose among the male hipsters I’ve met in New York.

I’ve noticed that among the Ruby programmers, there is a great admiration for the traditions that Unix programmers established in the 70s and 80s. The best example is Ryan Tomayko’s essay “I like Unicorn because it’s Unix” but I think the spirit of that essay pervades the Ruby community.

To the extent that there is a cultural overlap between urban male hipsters and the Ruby On Rails programmers, I think it is this sort of worship of craftsmanship and old men who are viewed as masters of some art.

Mind you, I reject the whole notion that Ruby represents some sort of peak of craftsmanship, so I regard Ruby-love as an aesthetic choice, rather than a technical choice. But I think it is an aesthetic choice that fits perfectly with being an urban male hipster.

Possibly this understanding of Ruby as a cultural artifact brought to us by old men who were great masters of the craft also energizes the virulent sexism that seems to pervade this crowd.

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