How do you deal with a boss who is stuck in the past?
LogicHoleFlaw: I'm not trying to be rude, but some of tension in this situation seems to be caused by a clash of egos as much as by any technical deficiency.In my current employment, there are many procedural deficiencies as well as technical weaknesses. But one thing that really is done right is that every piece of code that is merged into the source base is peer reviewed before it is committed. I'm a strong technical member of the team, and when I started I thought quite a bit of myself. Even so, I wrote things which were potentially confusing to my teammates. Not confusing because they are incapable of understanding, but just not having the sort of clarity which would make later maintenance easier for whoever would be tasked with it.When I got some hard questions in code reviews I felt a bit defensive at first, but once I swallowed my pride (tastes like crow!) and realized that I really am working with talented teammates who want us all to succeed, something clicked. I was teaching others new techniques and idioms, and they were teaching me about teamwork and the importance of writing for other humans as well as myself and the computer. I do sometimes end up doing major structural refactoring of existing code, but there's always both a good business and technical reason for it. I will say that I put in my own taste and style, but there's nothing wrong with that so long as everyone can understand it.In your situation, try hard to focus on the human element here instead of just the technical element. Have some respect for the people you work with - you should all be bringing a variety of experiences and knowledge to the table. I find it hard to believe that your boss is just trapped in the past and can't understand modern web programming. The fact that he chose Ruby and Rails for this effort indicates to me that he really is open to new ideas and opportunities. Hey, it's not CGI! You certainly have an opportunity to teach here, but you also might have an opportunity to learn something. Try to sit down and have an ego-free conversation about what's going on and see if you can find a deeper reason. Especially in a small startup, resentment and defensiveness can only undermine your collective ability to succeed. You need every strength that you can call upon in such an environment.