[kevinelliott]

I have been making a living building Rails apps for over a decade. It’s never too late, and while Rails is no longer the cool kid on the block, it is worth learning because:

1. There’s still a market for it. It shines at early stage, and plenty of companies like it, and the community is still decent (even though the energy of the early days is gone).

2. Many other newer frameworks and languages have borrowed many concepts from Rails and Ruby. Your learnings will translate!

3. It’s not all about money. Yes, you can make great money working with Ruby and Rails, but it’s a fun language and framework that cares about developer happiness (though, yes, there’s unhappy areas). So pick a language and framework that makes you enjoy your day. That’s why I have worked with Ruby so long.

4. Diversify. It’s not just about one language and framework. Learn other things too. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket (as it sounds like you kind of have with PHP). I particularly love learning Go, Dart, TypeScript, Vuejs, Nestjs, Swift, etc. Those are just a few. The point here is you learn the fundamentals in ways you will carry to whatever your future in programming will bring by taking some learnings from each one.

5. If you don’t actually enjoy learning new languages maybe consider another career? Not saying you should drop out of programming, but do what you love. We have one life to live. As cliche as that sounds, it’s true!