# David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH)

> Created Rails, which is how most people meet Ruby, and a lightning rod for strong opinions.

**David Heinemeier Hansson**, known as **DHH**, created **Ruby on Rails** by extracting it from the code of Basecamp at the company 37signals, and released it in 2004. It is hard to overstate the effect: Rails brought an enormous wave of newcomers to Ruby, and its ideas ([Convention over Configuration](https://chunkybacon.dev/glossary/convention-over-configuration.md), ["Rails is omakase"](https://chunkybacon.dev/glossary/rails-is-omakase.md)) reshaped how the whole industry builds web apps. For a great many people, Ruby *is* the language you learn because of Rails.

Opinions on him run strong in both directions. Many admire his opinionated design sense and his two decades of championing Ruby and Rails; others have taken sharp issue with his stances over the years, on matters from technical direction to workplace and political controversy. Ruby Lore does not try to settle that: where a disagreement is genuinely part of Ruby's history, it gets its own page where the people involved speak for themselves. What is beyond dispute is the reach of his influence. For a great many developers, Ruby and Rails are inseparable from his name.

*Related:* [Rails was pulled out of Basecamp](https://chunkybacon.dev/stories/rails-from-basecamp.md) · ["How to build a blog in 15 minutes with Rails" (DHH, 2005)](https://chunkybacon.dev/talks/fifteen-minute-blog.md) · ["Rails is omakase"](https://chunkybacon.dev/glossary/rails-is-omakase.md)

## Sources
- Ruby on Rails: https://rubyonrails.org/
- The Rails Doctrine: https://rubyonrails.org/doctrine

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Source: https://chunkybacon.dev/people/dhh/
License: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)