I'm grateful for Zed's work on Mongrel, and by all accounts he's a first-rate hacker, but this rant just doesn't hold water. Though the Rails community can certainly be a bit elitist, it's also full of friendly, supportive people, and Zed doesn't produce any convincing evidence that there is a systemic problem. This looks more like an airing of personal grievances, based on a small number of encounters, and blown all out of proportion.