I have no programming experience and want to learn coding as a hobby. My main interests are understanding how the web works, making HTTP requests, consuming public APIs, working with JSON, and eventually connecting applications to databases. Ruby and Rails appeal to me because the syntax looks clean and readable, but I'm unsure whether Ruby is still a healthy ecosystem for someone starting from scratch or whether it is mostly used for maintaining older systems. Python seems more popular and has a huge collection of libraries, but I'm wondering whether Ruby might provide a more enjoyable introduction to web development. I'm not planning a career change or job search; I mainly want to build fun personal projects in my spare time. For these goals, would Ruby, Python, or perhaps JavaScript/TypeScript be the best starting point?
4 Answers
Don’t choose solely based on popularity. Ruby has a pleasant, expressive style and many people find Rails highly productive for building complete web applications. If Ruby’s syntax genuinely makes you want to write code, that motivation is valuable. The tradeoff is that you may encounter fewer current tutorials and a smaller ecosystem than with Python, and you might eventually want to learn another language as well.
For your stated goal, I’d start with Python. You can install a library, call a public API, parse JSON, and print useful results very quickly. Python also has a huge beginner community and plenty of examples for web services, databases, and automation. It may not have the syntax you personally prefer, but it’s a practical and forgiving first language.
Remember that web development involves more than the server language. To understand websites from end to end, you’ll eventually need HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, regardless of whether the backend is written in Ruby or Python. For a hobby project, the best path is probably to pick the language whose tutorials and syntax feel most inviting, build a small API client first, and avoid overthinking the ecosystem before you’ve written some code.
Ruby is absolutely still usable, and Rails remains a mature, battle-tested framework. Ruby’s syntax is one of its biggest strengths, so if you find it appealing, that can make learning more enjoyable. It hasn’t disappeared, either—many large and long-running products still use Ruby and Rails. That said, Python has a larger community and a broader selection of beginner resources and libraries, so it’s usually the safer general-purpose recommendation. Neither choice prevents you from learning HTTP, APIs, JSON, or databases; those concepts matter more than the language itself.
For web development specifically, JavaScript or TypeScript with Node.js is also worth considering. You’ll likely need JavaScript for browser code anyway, and using it on both the front end and back end can reduce the amount of context switching for a beginner.
Ruby has been called ‘on the way out’ for years, but it continues to be maintained and used. It’s better described as a mature, smaller ecosystem than a dead one.