I certainly don't think Ruby is indefensible. I think it's possible to get a lot done with Ruby, and I think that's very valuable for new developers who need to learn a lot in a very limited amount of time. But I don't think that addresses the elephant in the room: junior web developers have to deal with the frontend, and that means javascript. So why waste (very limited time) teaching them a second language too?

> It's much more beginner friendly and is a thoroughly consistent OO language—i.e., everything is an object, including numbers and strings.

This sort of thing occurs to you and me and makes sense because we have a broader understanding of software engineering. In practice, I just don't think "everything is an object" means much to someone who's a month into a bootcamp.

My perspective comes from having found Ruby a lot easier as a (mostly) beginner after having mostly just used Flash than I found JavaScript 2 years later when I decided to move to the front-end. Since that time, JavaScript has become considerably more complex as new features have been added and its ecosystem has grown.

IMO learning very beginner-friendly language like Ruby to a low-intermediate level first actually speeds up the process of getting to an employable level with a more difficult language like JS.

I drool over the curriculums at bootcamps that use Ruby (like Lambda School and Ironclad). Alas, the one I mentor in does everything in js/react with a little bit of python sprinkled in.