How do you see the future of Ruby?

Question

Ruby on Rails

Hello.
I'm a student, recently started learning Ruby, started RoR.
I had no experience with PHP before, so I can’t rate it in terms of complexity / ease.
I really like the syntax and many features of Ruby, especially compared to C/C++ and JS, but I'm very worried about whether I should develop in this direction.
I noticed that the popularity of Ruby has dropped a lot lately, the hipsters have gone to Node, the lazy 40-year-old uncles do not want to leave PHP. And it's not that the popularity of Ruby is no longer growing, but that, according to many statistics, it is falling. It scares me a lot.
Yes, salaries are still high, incl. on freelancing (a priority occupation for me, therefore the web), but freelancing still needs to grow, right? In my city, vacancies for RoRs are no more than once a month (and this is a good coincidence). And everyone wants seniors. Over the past year, there was only one vacancy where they were looking for a junior.
Is Ruby becoming an esoteric language?
How do newcomers enter the world of RoR now? If freelancing is for guys with experience, as they say, then remote work?
I'm in a strange position:
I want to be able to freelance or work remotely. From this it follows that it is better to choose the web.
PHP doesn't pay very well. It follows from this that it is not worth choosing.
I have the opportunity to work in EU countries, and ideally I would like to move to Canada/USA/Australia.
It follows from this that it is better to choose what is now popular in startups. (for more likely to receive an offer) I.e. Ruby/Python.
It seems like ASP.NET is now popular in Western countries, but I'm not a big fan of Microsoft and its creations.
There is also Java on the web, but for some reason it seems to me that freelancing is not the best choice.
A little messy, yes. The main question is: how difficult is it for a beginner (meaning the moment when my knowledge reaches the level of a junior in development on RoR) to pass this global filter from the almost complete lack of work in his city and the ubiquitous need only for seniors?
And a secondary one: will Ruby's decline in popularity stop? I understand that sooner or later, no matter what I choose, I will have to learn something new, but better late.

Answer 1

At one time, something similar tormented me, but I stayed with ruby ​​and was happy as an elephant. This report, which I saw somehow right there, on the toaster, helped a little.
https://youtu.be/xPFRUM_oDKA
And if from yourself - cut, and in particular the rails will not die. Especially with those updates that are in version 5.

Answer 2

PHP doesn't pay very well.

It's a delusion.
The average salary is low due to the fact that the average level is low, and there are simply no specialists of this level in neighboring technologies.
And if you take the level of the top 10%, then it will be no less.
The advantage of PHP is that it has the maximum range of areas in web development. This is an enterprise (like Java and C #), and startups (along with Ruby and Python), and boxed solutions (no analogues). Even went to microservices, competing with Node, js and Go.

And a secondary one: will Ruby's decline in popularity stop?

Ruby will definitely be popular in the coming years. And then you will look, stay, or go to other ecosystems.

Answer 3

A programmer is a universal skill and should not be tied to technology. With high-quality fundamental knowledge, by the age of 30, typing code in: php, python / django, RoR, etc. should not cause problems for you, because you will have to face everything. You can start your journey with RoR, the candidate is quite worthy. And then look at the market, it is quite possible that the freelance market will require you to solve problems in PHP.

Answer 4

You can feel like in a herd and run where everyone is running. And you can find your gold mine.

Answer 5

I recommend watching the presentation of one proger on ruby ​​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mv_aVepLXzo
There is some information about ruby, not only RoR. I like it.