> People interested in the craft of software development will learn 
> languages for the sake of learning new concepts.   I'd much rather see a 
> slower growth of the Ruby community than try to draw people in who will 
> only pursue Ruby if they think it offers gainful employment or some 
> "non-hobby" use.

+1

At Mercer, we're using Ruby in an in-house financial application plowing
through about 15 USD millions a year. We are much more concerned with the
long-term stability than the short term growth of Ruby. Not saying that
they always contradict each other, just that the long term is more
important.

JE