[ruby-talk:11521] Re: Negative Reviews for Ruby and Programming Ruby

In article <001b01c09ec9$19ccc840$0200000a@windows>,
 "Mitch Vincent" <[e-mail]> writes:

>What you have there are a few people that didn't like Ruby. What does
>that mean? Nothing at all.

No.  What we have is a major public site giving a very negative
impression of Ruby.  I'm not sure what that means, but I very much
doubt it means nothing.

>You know, life (and Ruby) goes on no matter other people think of
>Ruby..

No.  Life aside, Ruby's "going on" will be very much affected if
people think it has nothing to offer.  Whatever it's virtues, if it
can't attract users and developers, it will die.  I certainly hope
some duff reviews at Amazon won't contribute to that, but I'd like to
be more sure.

> ... I think we all need to quit worrying about silly things like
>negative book reviews on Amazon.com (of all places!) posting things to
>Slashdot and Larry Wall saying something about Ruby at a conf.. 

Sadly, silly things sometimes matter.

> ... let people use it who want to use it and don't worry about those
>that don't.

I'm not worried about people not wanting to use Ruby *if* they are
well-informed about it.  I am worried that people will not want to use
it because eg. they think it's a second-rate Python.

>If people would put half as much effort into something constructive
>as they do into advocacy of their favorite scripting language and
>Unix flavor the world would be a better place and this list's volume
>would be cut in half!!

Advocacy can be constructive (though sadly it often isn't).  (I
recommend "Why I Hate Advocacy"
http://www.perl.com/pub/2000/12/advocacy.html)

>Don't worry, code Ruby and be happy!

Yes, I intend to code Ruby and be happy.  But a glib "who cares what
other people think" won't stop me worrying.

Regards, 

Jeremy Henty