Does a programming language built around the idea of developer happiness, work in a world of AI coding agents, especially if the developer is not the primary writer of the code anymore?
The Ruby Programming language was first released by Matz in the 1990s with the primary goal of developer happiness. My first interaction with Ruby came around 2006, I was interviewing with a company that had recently moved to using Ruby on Rails. I had zero experience with Ruby or Rails, and spent a week franticcally trying to get my head around which bits were Rails, and which bits were Ruby. 19 years later, I still write new Ruby code almost every day. I've dabbled in other languages, but I always find myself coming back to Ruby because of those decisions that Matz made back in the 1990s. Ruby is just a really nice language to work with.
As of early 2026, AI coding agents have become a larger part of how I approach software development. I think I'm past the doubt stage, and I can really see how these tools can help me to ship more features, and analyse code better. But, given the aI is now writing a lot of the code, I have found myself asking a fairly fundamental question for the future: "If AI is writing all the code, why use a language that is designed for developer happiness?". It's a slightly unsettling question, has the language that has been the backbone of my career finished? Ruby is a great language, It's a brilliant allrounder, but let's not pretend that other languages aren't faster or simpler. Why wouldn't you use the faster language, especially if the AI is handling the in'n'outs of actually writing it.
It's something that's been on my mind, but I still believe Ruby is excellently placed to thrive in the AI agent world. Humans will still be in the loop for some time, maybe not forever, but certainly for quite a while. Given this, developers will still need to read PRs, and dig around in the console to debug issues. Humans will still be holding the pager. Other languages that might be faster to run, but they also come with a lot of noise, and this is where Ruby really shines.