I have been working on Ruby since 2009.
Ruby changed my way of thinking about software development. I found, that another way to build great software exists.
I love Ruby for high development speed. It is very critical for most business.
I hate Ruby for GIL. But I cann’t actually say that I “hate” Ruby for this, it is just "you should know, that such limitation exists in MRI".
Most terrible architectural code I have ever met is not Ruby code. Really. It is hard to find very bad Ruby code.
The most spectacular Ruby news in 2014 was idea about "soft typing" in Ruby, garbage collection for symbols in Ruby 2.2.
Life after Ruby - I call this heterogeneous applications. It is mean, what Ruby still exist and continue using in development, but some parts of application/architecture have parts on another languages: Java, Elixir/Erlang, Golang, Rust, C/C++, etc.
Currently I am working on financial application which should help customers to categorize transactions better. Working with NLP and Mashine Learning in Ruby.
My dev environment contains TextMate2/Sublime/Vim, iTerm2/Yakuake, RVM, Chrome/Firefox, Vagrant.
My favorite Ruby website is RWpod. It is best news about Ruby and Web, because I directly involved in the news creation.
I recommend the book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" and "Atlas Shrugged" books. First book shows the technical approach to many cases with a huge amount of jokes, second - it is just very good book, that can change your vision on current life.
My personal life hack is learning and teaching. By combining these two processes I can easy make myseft be in progress.
If you want to become an expert you should like your work. It is the most important, because it very simple to be an expert in work, you love.