&gt; Were the &quot;Ruby will always be slow&quot; people simply wrong?<p>Simple answer, yes. Not saying that Ruby is fast now, however Ruby doesn&#x27;t necessarily always have to be slow. Just like any languages&#x2F;framework&#x2F;etc. It can be made faster, although the amount of work to get there may be substantial.<p>At the time ruby was really slow, and with no real progress and a waning number of groups working to improve it. Now, it appears people are making progress and working on it.