[ruby-core:19008] Re: Let Ruby be Ruby

On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 1:20 AM, Meinrad Recheis
<[e-mail]> wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 28, 2008 at 9:10 PM, Trans <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>
>> On Sep 25, 1:39 pm, "Berger, Daniel" <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> >
>> > Then there's the other option of removing everything from the standard
>> > library completely except rubygems, and letting folks install only what
>> > they want. But, maybe that's another topic. :)
>>
>> Probably not quite everything should go. But, given that RubyGems is
>> now standard, and used by everyone, I'd say that sounds like a damn
>> good idea.
>>
>> The problem with including all these extra libraries is that it
>> discourages developers from trying, using and building alternatives.
>> In a way, Ruby reminds me of Windows in this respect, we all know the
>> effect of it's bundling of IE.
>
> Ruby users can not be compared to those who use IE just because it is
> preinstalled on the system. Also the existence of IE did not stop people
> make much better browsers. As for IE, the only thing I ever used it for was
> downloading firefox ;)

I sort of disagree with you. Nathiel Talbott (forgive me, If I got
name wrong) said:

"As far as getting test/unit in to the standard library, it was great
for me but mostly bad for test/unit. It's a big plus to tell potential
clients that you wrote something in the Ruby stdlib, and it does great
things for your Google juice. At the same time, I was already
struggling with motivation and productivity when working on test/unit
at the time, and what I discovered is that getting a library in the
stdlib is a huge demotivator for working on it, at least for me. It
becomes much easier to stick with the status quo than to change it."

Its almost true. Getting your library in stdlib means, you are mostly
handling over reins to someone else. Not that, this itself is a big
problem, but the problem is, few wants to hack on a library that is
already in stdlib. Reasons:

1. Mostly, oh man, this should already be bulletproof (where as time
and again, we have found that, thats not the case) and just work.
2. Okay, I found a bug. Now what? submit to redmine, rubyforge and
wait for the next release of ruby?
3. Lastly, I feel much easier hacking on a forked project on github or
rubyforge.


Tom's other point is valid too (no amount of firefox success can deny
that). Bundling of many libraries within stdlib has sorta killed
competetion (net/http for instance). I think, bundling of libraries
just for the sake of "pleasing" folks is wrong. Easiest way is not
correct way (and people should get used to this).