[ruby-talk:11281] Re: Programming Ruby is now online

On Thu, 22 Feb 2001, Dave Thomas wrote:

> Jim Freeze <[e-mail]> writes:
> 
> > I'm curious though, no party's had an objection to releasing the
> > book online in fear that it would decrease sales of the book?
> 
> I don't know what's going to happen. I'm not really that worried, to
> be honest. Selling books is not really a living, it's just fun. What
> _would_ give me a buzz though is seeing the Ruby community grow. This
> might be a small step along the way.
> 
> 
> 
> So there's no problem, really.
> 
> 
> Share and enjoy.
> 
I have been using Perl since 1991 and have used it in my last two
jobs. About a year and a half ago I found a very good book on Perl that
taught me idiomatic Perl. With that book I have been able to write some
extensive code with Perl, making my life quite productive.

Nevertheless, I have been using ruby now for about 30 days. Well....after
30 days I feel more comfortable with Ruby than with Perl. Over the years
of Perl usage my brain has become warped so that it doesn't hurt as much
when I look at Perl code :). But Ruby feels like a natural language. I 
am still just a novice, but I can see already as a good portion of my
psuedo code becomes executable code with little or no
change. Development cycle time is reduced (many thanks to irb), bugs
are easier to find and fix, and the fully OO nature of Ruby allows me 
to keep complex code modular and manageable (No mysterious syntax for OO
like Perl or TOO many options as in C++...ie, too much rope).

...and on to the real point...
As I am working today with the pickaxe book by my side, I am thinking,
what a great resource. These guys put a lot of work into this book and it
is saving my life right now (no joke here. Thanks Matz for Ruby, but if I 
did not have the book, the chances are very small that I would be able to 
justify using Ruby at my job. And I definitely would not be as far as I am
on the learning curve.  Also, I really don't want to go back to Perl...). 

Plus, having a book lends authenticity to the language. I realize that the
book can't contain everything, but it has enough to get you going. I hope
to see more books published.

...and for Matz....
I have experience with many programming languages, but for the type of
programming I am doing now, Ruby is the most efficient language to use. I 
don't think that Ruby will make inroads all areas, such as embedded motor 
control or  device drivers, nor computationally expensive numerics 
(although it can be used as the glue code to call the optimized routines),
but for application areas involving networking, web, db, process control,
filters, etc, where Ruby meets the performance requirements, there
is really no other intelligent (and informed) choice. (wow, does that
sound kind of harsh?)

Where Perl seems to have it's niche carved out and corralled by it's
potentially obtuse syntax, I can envision Ruby, after being excepted in
the Perl arena, spreading out into domains owned by C and C++, where
the Perls and the Pythons would never be allowed to play. 


 ====================================================
Jim Freeze
[e-mail]
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** http://www.freeze.org **
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