I am looking into learning app development with no programming experience. Should I learn Node.js or Ruby on Rails? I hear opinions like Ruby on Rails is obsolete and then other people say it's better because it's more traditional. If it really is obsolete then how are people still using it? But then is Node.js easier and more useful?
25 year vet who knows both well: learn Ruby on Rails, the on-ramp is very gradual and you probably won't need anything else if all you want to build are SaaS-like web apps.
Rails is unquestionably better now than when it was new and cool. Before, the ecosystem and core framework were evolving at a rapid pace, leading to some suboptimal patterns and sometimes making maintenance a bit of a nightmare. Now there's a pretty settled solution for most things. If you want to get started building apps without much fuss, there's no better way.
People who say rails is dead or obsolete have no idea what they are talking about. Rails is better than ever, the core community has stayed strong even while everyone hopped on the javascript hell bandwagon. Enjoy your life, learn Rails.
