Let's start with the "must advocate" part. I work for Microsoft because I really like their web products. They don't tell me to comment on Hacker News, I don't get a HN comment bonus. The only possible impact commenting on HN could have on my job is negative. I'm just saying what I think.

I said that given a move away from .NET, Node would have been a better choice. I think Node is more open source friendly for a lot of reasons. For one thing, if cross platform friendliness is a primary driver, the Rails stack doesn't run easily on some of the most popular operating systems. The dev setup instructions are getting better, but they all began with "step 1. buy a mac". Is that really more enabling to the 2nd and 3rd world developers Jeff mentions? It's admittedly gotten better as they've added some Linux docs.

I also listed some reasons that C# is not really a non-starter for open source. Jeff's first two points don't really sell Ruby over .NET + Mono to me, and I explained that I don't think Jeff or StackOverflow really participated fully in the .NET open source ecosystem in a way that gave them a lot of value. There are a lot of self fulfilling prophecies in the .NET open source world.

> I work for Microsoft because I really like their web products.

Cool! Good to have gigs we like.

> "step 1. buy a mac". Is that really more enabling to the 2nd and 3rd world developers Jeff mentions?

Eh. Linux is just fine for Rails dev. The Mac thing is mostly a hold-over from earlier days when TextMate was the default editor, and because most Rails shops expect it. In fact one of the most "enabling" scenarios here is to take a cheap, lightweight Ubuntu dev laptop and ssh into a dedicated development server, do all your editing on vim or emacs.

> I also listed some reasons that C# is not really a non-starter for open source.

Yeah, but it's a hard sell is it not? When considering tech stacks to risk your entire project's future on, what's the practical difference between "Not Really A Non-Starter" and "Really, Really a Non-Starter"? Not much.

I develop Ruby on OS X using Ubuntu running in a Vagrant VM, just because package management and configuration is so much easier that way (although Boxen may change that soon). Well, and also because we use Linux in production, and platform specific bugs, though rare, are not unheard of.

Windows is acceptable for Ruby development if Vagrant or JRuby is used, although the platform is admittedly not a first class citizen.

Sorry but that's total FUD and has a very obvious agenda. Ruby is preinstalled on most Linux distros, and thus Rails is a gem install away. In production, people only run Ruby on Linux. I, and a heck of a lot of people, do all Ruby or Rails dev on Linux. So I guess you must mean Windows.

So perhaps what you actually meant to say is that Microsoft haven't stepped in to do all the work for supporting Ruby on Windows, like they did with Node?

It's only fud if that's your worldview. I wanted to get set up on discourse and all the docs were written for Mac. It's Mac first development. That's fine, it's just not any more open than Windows first development.

I think Rails might have gotten farther on Windows if the community had less of an anti-Microsoft mindset from the beginning. http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/02/douchebaggery.html

I used to work at Microsoft so i can alpreciate how that shapes the lense of how you view the world.

I think the statement that Rails might of gotten further on the windows platform is a ridiculous statement. Ruby as far back as remember is a language that prefered environment was Linux. There was a point where there was no windows version. I remember when even on OSX the installation of ruby was an endevour. OpenSsl incompatabilities, gems with c extensions that never worked right (rMagick which is a Linux first lib). So the underlying language that backs Rails is not windows friendly. There is no doubt in my mind that Windows would have been a hindrance not a positive.

Macs are only popular because for the most part they are similar enough to Linux that you can develop on a Mac and deploy to Linux. I don't know of one Rails shop that chooses to deploy on Windows.

That's not what I meant, although I see that the "it's Mac first development" thing didn't help. I agree with your point that the BSD heritage of OSX really positioned it well as a *nix dev platform.

I didn't say that Rails would have gotten farther on the Windows platform. That would be silly; you're assuming that because you're assuming I have misshapen lenses and / or am an idiot. I get that some mostly Microsoft devs are sheltered, but some aren't. I've worked with Mac and Unix going back a few decades.

What I said was that the native Windows / Node experience is probably better than the native Windows / Rails experience because the Rails community by and large really isn't all that interested in how it works on Windows (see link).

Because a single project in a language has Mac only development instructions the language and ecosystem is Mac only? What leads you to think the discourse devs would have documented x-platform if using node?

And the "all wrong" thing is a bit of an inside joke. He's occasionally slightly right, but I won't ever tell him that.

Ah, got it. Humor achievement unlocked.