At this point in time, Rails is basically the reason I have a career, get paid, and provide for my family. Sure, any programmer could say that about any framework/language/platform they use regularly I suppose, but in fact Rails is the first platform I've been able to leverage to get great jobs and work with great people. Before that, various combinations of WordPress and homegrown PHP code were my bread-and-butter but I also did projects in Java, Python, and others. (I still shutter when I remember what I had to go through to work in Java...)<p>I think the thing that was so amazing about Rails when it really got popular was that you could build almost any sort of web app you could imagine and everything would just make sense. The full-stack, the conventions, the fact it took much less time to get something working than its competitors...it was SO much easier to build stuff and stop reinventing the wheel.<p>I can't tell you how many times in the PHP world I had to figure out how to write code to send hand-tuned SQL to the server just to do basic stuff. Obviously, these days you can do cool framework-y full-stack stuff in PHP as well, but in many respects that was a response to the rise of Rails. (Actually, I must admit, I built a PHP 5 framework somewhat inspired by Rails before I jumped onboard the bandwagon...what prompted that was Zend announcing their PHP 5 framework, at which point I figured I'd either drop my framework and go with Zend or...just go with Rails, learn Ruby, and stop fighting it. I'm so thankful I decided to do just that!)<p>So thank you Ruby, and Rails on your 10-year birthday. You have made this programmer a happy man.