Apparently Rails is the killer application for Ruby just like Unix/Linux is a killer application for C. What Ruby enabled is something that was not feasible to be done by Java, PHP, Perl and Python (top four most popular languages for web at the beginning of Rails). For better perspective on the matter please check an excellent article by Patrick Lee, the author of the new Stanza language.

[1]Stop designing languages. Write libraries instead:

https://jaxenter.com/stop-designing-languages-write-librarie...