Copyright 2006 Chicago Tribune Company
                                Chicago Tribune

                             August 28, 2006 Monday
                           Chicagoland Final Edition

SECTION:  BUSINESS ; Pg. 8

LENGTH: 1159 words

HEADLINE: Gamer cracks code, finds jewel;
Chicagoan lands in the spotlight after creating Ruby on Rails, a red-hot Web
development tool

BYLINE: By Miriah Meyer, Special to the Tribune

BODY:

   In the world of computer programmers, 26-year-old David Heinemeier Hansson is
a rock star.

   With clean-cut looks, a steely-eyed stare and 25,000 lines of computer code,
the Chicagoan has been catapulted from his humble roots as a computer gamer to
the forefront of the geek-o-sphere, earning the title of "Hottest Hacker on
Earth" and landing on the cover of Linux Journal.

   Among the community of programmers who are shaping the look and usage of the
Web, Heinemeier Hansson's software tool, dubbed Ruby on Rails, is described as a
gem. And in a swoon over his brazen personality, these programmers are rapidly
turning into evangelical Ruby on Rails followers.

   "I have a lot of ideas on how to do things and I've embedded them in Rails,"
said Heinemeier Hansson. "And I think that's why it works. I think that's why it
's something special and something new."

   Under the mantra that simpler is better, Ruby on Rails provides just the
necessary tools for building Web-based applications, taking care of many
time-consuming chores. This strategy allows a few programmers to do in a few
days what would otherwise take a large team of programmers using traditional
tools weeks.

   At the first official Ruby on Rails Conference, held recently in Chicago,
Heinemeier Hansson was busy between sessions posing for photos and signing
autographs for laptop-toting attendees.

   His 90-minute keynote had the audience hanging on every punctuated statement
and flourish of his hands as he used words like "beautiful" and "magical" to
describe concepts such as computer code and programming designs.

   But while Heinemeier Hansson's bold opinions on efficient software are
capturing the hearts of programmers, his voice of protest against bloated,
corporate systems strikes a nerve with software giants, said software consultant
Zed Shaw, who developed a Web server called Mongrel using Ruby on Rails.

   Companies like IBM Corp., Oracle Corp., and Sun Microsystems Inc. stand to
lose money from competitors using Ruby on Rails.

   "When you go to a company that would spend $1.5 million on just one piece of
software, and you show up with just one or two people that can produce the same
product with Rails, you start getting some backlash from the software giants,"
said Shaw.

   Compared to Apple Computer Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs by one co-worker,
Heinemeier Hansson appeals to the computing crowd by striving to build simpler,
smarter, sassier software.

   "[Heinemeier Hansson] is obsessive about the aesthetics of the code," said
Scott Raymond, a programmer based in Kansas City, Kan., who uses Ruby on Rails
to build Web applications for Firewheel Design. "He will be up working on Rails
at midnight, and he'll just be making it prettier by adding things like tabs to
make everything line up on the screen."

   The same devotion to stylishly minimal features permeates the culture of
37signals, the Chicago-based software company where Heinemeier Hansson is part
owner.

   Ruby on Rails originally grew out of a 37signals project that Heinemeier
Hansson built, and has since become the core of all the applications the company
develops.

   Heinemeier Hansson joined up with 37signals several years ago as a way to
make some cash while earning a business degree in his native country of Denmark.
He had been learning PHP, a common programming language for creating Web
applications, to build gaming Web sites for his Danish compatriots. But he was
reluctant to consider himself a programmer.

   "Growing up I had lots of friends who were programmers. I saw their world, I
saw what they were doing, and it looked like so much annoying work," said
Heinemeier Hansson.

   At 37signals, however, there was a need for a programmer to develop an
in-house application called Basecamp to manage the company's growing number of
projects. Heinemeier Hansson was recruited because of his knowledge of PHP, but
he used the opportunity to instead try out an obscure programming language
called Ruby that programming gurus had touted for years in how-to books.

   After just a week of playing with Ruby he was hooked, becoming a fervent
devotee of the language.

   "Ruby code is beautiful. It is aesthetic," raved Heinemeier Hansson. "With
Ruby, the encryption is gone, the code reads out loud."

   While building Basecamp, he developed a toolbox of Ruby helper programs that
formed the basis for the Ruby on Rails project. Six months later, Ruby on Rails
was released into the open-source community.

   While releasing Ruby on Rails as an open-source project keeps 37signals from
being able to make money directly by selling the popular framework, the program
's popularity has burned the firm's image. Further, Heinemeier Hansson and his
business partner, Jason Fried, say that keeping Ruby on Rails proprietary wouldn
't have benefited the company at all.

   "There's a lot of stuff that's come out of Ruby on Rails from other people
adding to the code," said Fried. "And that's one way to stay small, let other
people do your work for you. I think people who think about proprietary
technologies are thinking in the Old World."

   Dave Thomas, an author of numerous books on programming languages and
practices, said the open-source development of Ruby on Rails is allowing for
many small Web start-ups to again thrive.

   "I'm seeing a whole lot more energy being put back into start-ups, and I see
this largely due to Rails," said Thomas. "Rails is reducing the cost of
entry--it's allowing people to do a whole lot of really cool stuff from their
garages."

   Last summer, Ruby on Rails helped a small team of programmers at EarthLink to
contribute to the New Orleans relief effort after Hurricane Katrina slammed into
the city. Tasked with building a Web site to help survivors reconnect, the team
had less than a day to get the application up and running.

   "Had we gone through our normal development process it could have taken
weeks," said Greg Hartling, team leader on the project.

   Instead, Hartling's team decided to build the application with Ruby on Rails.

   Six hours and one skipped dinner later, SurvivorsReunited.com was online. The
first names were in the database the next day.

   Thomas said Ruby on Rails, and its opinionated, steadfast creator, has a
challenging year ahead.

   As Rails becomes more prevalent in larger companies, Thomas noted that there
is tension between the core Ruby on Rails developers and people that are hoping
Ruby on Rails moves toward accommodating more of the needs of big companies.

   "It's a double-edged sword," noted Shaw. "If Rails didn't have a really big
figurehead it wouldn't have gotten as popular as it is. But because you have
this big figurehead, there's a lot of places it's not going to go for a while.
Places it may never go."

   Heinemeier Hansson, however, shrugs off these cautions. He says that
ultimately he needs Ruby on Rails only for his own work at 37signals and does
not plan on meeting requests that fall outside of those needs.

   Said Heinemeier Hansson, "We've gotten Rails to this point by saying no."