don't let Zed's online persona (they ZSFA type one) fool you. He's actually a brilliant coder, has done all the things that it sounds like he hasn't and is one of those who I think has actually given more to the community than the "community" has ever given him (I'm making reference to the phrase "give back to the community")
Sure, he has a fairly unapologetic and somewhat confrontational nature (much like DHH) that seem to irk people, but (also like DHH) his walk matches or exceeds his talk.
Like you I dislike the way Zed has a tendency to group all Ruby people together and target them as a whole, when in reality his complaints would be better directed at a specific subset. I'm a Ruby dev (not a Rails one) and it stings when Zed fires his literary shotgun at Rails, and Ruby, standing next to Rails also gets hit.
But... this isn't about Zed being a dick. I was pointing out that there's also a massive amount of good stuff he's done as well. I'm not a fanboy of his (Zed has fanboys?) but I do have a fair bit of respect for his ability and what he has done, and his writing does nothing to diminish the quality of his work.
The comparison with DHH I thought was positive. DHH has strong opinions and (it appears) an ego to match, but can back it up with code.
Sure, he has a fairly unapologetic and somewhat confrontational nature (much like DHH) that seem to irk people, but (also like DHH) his walk matches or exceeds his talk.