Hansson answered critics who have dismissed the framework, and he touted the framework's scalability during a keynote presentation and subsequent interview at the RailsConf 2009 event in Las Vegas. Hansson also filled in attendees on plans for the upcoming , which merges Rails with the Merb framework.

Developers, he said, do not need to fret about whether they are up to date with the latest Rails capabilities. "I think we are largely doing the same things we were doing five years ago," he said.

Critics, though, have questioned the framework's usefulness in the enterprise and its relevance. But Hansson stressed, "Rails is incredibly relevant."

Rails scales for the enterprise, he said. "I think it's always scaled. I think that scaling is the ultimate false debate topic for people who don't have actual technical arguments," Hansson said.