From: Brian Candler Date: 2011-07-25T04:45:24+09:00 Subject: [ruby-core:38461] [Backport87 - Feature #4996] About 1.8.7 EOL Issue #4996 has been updated by Brian Candler. Shyouhei Urabe wrote: > The world's gonna move to 1.9. You've lost your war (for at least three years now), > that's a sad thing. But we can't go back. If you don't like it, I think it's your > turn to hustle. Just fork it. You have the right to do so. Indeed. The question then becomes, which is more productive? Maintain 1.8 plus all the libraries we depend on, or just move to another language like Python? Python has quite a few ugly points (for example look how it handles 'super'), but it has semantics for strings and M17N which are both well-defined and easily understood. That clarity has made the Python 2->3 transition much smoother; indeed, they have even provided a tool which converts most Python 2 programs to Python 3. I remember fondly the smooth transition from ruby 1.6.8 to 1.8.0 (the 'shim' library providing 1.8 features while people still had to deploy 1.6.8) > PS: For Encodings' being complicated, just curse the Babylonians. I still assert that Ruby makes programming too hard. A statement like "a = b + c" should be easy to understand; it should be clear under what circumstances it raises an exception, and it should be clear what properties 'a' will have going forward which might the behaviour at the next point of use. Anyway, you're right, there's nothing I can do about this. Ruby <= 1.8 is (or was) a fine language, and I shall miss it. ---------------------------------------- Feature #4996: About 1.8.7 EOL http://redmine.ruby-lang.org/issues/4996 Author: Shyouhei Urabe Status: Open Priority: Normal Assignee: Category: core Target version: No, not now. Don't worry. But we have to start talking about this topic: when and how 1.8.7 should die. "You should really use 1.9". I have said this again and again and now repeat it once more. As we're about to release 1.9.3 I can't but say it is, totally wonderful. Rich features. Faster execution. Rubygems integrated. Rails works perfectly. I've been using 1.9 for years and now I can't go back to the days without it. So why there's still 1.8.7? It's also clear: for system admins. So far 1.8.7 has been adopted widely because it was a state of art ruby implementation of the day it was released. Even after you stop writing software for something, it needs bugfixes and maintenance releases. For ruby 1.8.7 , that's what I'd been offering for these three years. Now... I know many of you're still developing your software against 1.8.7 in spite of its dead-endedness. Sooner or later the whole Ruby community will move towards 1.9 and those 1.8.7-based systems are expected to become unmaintained. I don't like the situation. I want you and your system to be 1.9 ready. So to encourage your moving towards 1.9, I think I should define 1.8.7's end-of-life to be at some point in the future. I guess you're not moving to 1.9 because 1.8 is (or at least seems to be) maintained. Let's stop it. We will no longer touch 1.8.7 in any way once after the EOL. right? My current timeline (to be rescheduled) is: - Normal maintenance (as it is today): provided until June 2012, - Security fixes: provided until June 2013. Give us your opinioms. -- http://redmine.ruby-lang.org