If you're not picking the JVM in 2016 to build your core services and web applications then you're making a mistake that is going to cost you time and money either upfront in building things that already exist or later down the road when you start to need more performance and your RoR application isn't cutting it anymore.
Say what you will about Java the language (I agree it's not particularly "sexy") but the JVM is a performance beast. You can write Java or pick from one of several other languages that range across different paradigms from static functional to dynamic (current gen: Scala, Groovy, JRuby, Jython, next-gen: Kotlin, Ceylon). Integration is usually painless between these languages. It's also highly configurable and can be tuned to virtually any workload.
You get the huge benefit of a very mature and common shared infrastructure and tooling environment. Your operations team will thank you for solidifying on a single runtime environment.
Java is great. The whole ecosystem is really really solid in general and it's truly a pick what you want platform at this point. The JVM is magical for web applications and services.
Say what you will about Java the language (I agree it's not particularly "sexy") but the JVM is a performance beast. You can write Java or pick from one of several other languages that range across different paradigms from static functional to dynamic (current gen: Scala, Groovy, JRuby, Jython, next-gen: Kotlin, Ceylon). Integration is usually painless between these languages. It's also highly configurable and can be tuned to virtually any workload.
You get the huge benefit of a very mature and common shared infrastructure and tooling environment. Your operations team will thank you for solidifying on a single runtime environment.
Java is great. The whole ecosystem is really really solid in general and it's truly a pick what you want platform at this point. The JVM is magical for web applications and services.