From: Ryan Paul <segphault@...>
Date: 2004-05-15T10:38:51+09:00
Subject: Re: Please revisit  Ruby's Best and vote for additions

On Sat, 15 May 2004 05:58:43 +0900, Sascha Ebach wrote:

> Hi,
> 
>> Well, there's the J2EE Pet Store as the canonical example.  I believe 
>> Microsoft did a version in C#/.net.  So consider that as the baseline; 
>> The implementation is the spec.
>> 
>> It helps if a Ruby version goes toe-to-toe with Java or C# version, but 
>> I think the key is a demonstration that you can build the same sort of 
>> common business apps in Ruby, and show that they're just as fast and 
>> scalable but easier to develop and maintain.
> 
> I concur. That is excactly what you would have to do, amongst other 
> things of course. But, what is going to happen if everything works well?
> 
> Javadroids will become Rubydroids. Using Ruby they will be able to 
> deliver their software even faster and in turn you will get two dozen 
> programmers for a dime.
> 
> Is that really what we want? What I am saying is let's just be a little 
> realistic. Without the enormous financial resources Sun and MS has 
> nobody is ever going to be able to achieve anything but convert (or 
> better introduce) a few (of the smarter) people to Ruby. The project 
> will definately help, and it is very important and worthwhile, but it 
> will never be a real success. Though I hope I am wrong here.
> 
> And maybe that is not even that bad. Just read the thread "What so 
> special about PostgreSQL and other RDBMS" if you want to get a feel how 
> the tone of this list will change when all the droids come ;) I would 
> rather be amongst the fewer and nicer ppl on this list.
> 
> Sascha

Do we really want ruby to be used in mainstream industry development? I,
for one, would prefer that javadroids stay javadroids. Reading about Rite
and Ruby 2, it looks like matz is going to be altering the language enough
to make some previous code incompatible. That means that we get the best
syntax imaginable, but industry is more interested in consistency and
backwards compatibility - languages like python and java would NEVER
evolve in a way that would introduce incompatibilities, because business
doesnt want quality, they want banal stagnancy. I watched the python
world adopt the java safety-scissors approach to programming, and it was a
large part of why I chose to switch to ruby. I dont want a big-business
buzzword oriented language, I want something innovative and daring. If it
is the sort of thing that intrigues the kind of people that currently use
java, its probably not what I want. If ruby is adapted to fit the needs of
big business, it will lose it's flexibility, and it will be much less fun
to use!

--SegPhault