[ruby-talk:01259] Re: Popularizing Ruby outside of Japan

[e-mail] (Yukihiro Matsumoto) writes:

> I believe it would be a very good idea to make a concerted effort to
> popularize Ruby outside of Japan -- a P/R campaign.  I have a few ideas
> how to do this:

I think it would be tremendous! However, I also think it's just a
couple of months premature. In order to build a strong and growing
base of developers outside Japan, what we need most of all is more
complete English-language documentation and sample code. Without this, 
we'll attract people who come to the site, get confused, and drift
away. So I'd say "yes", we need to do this, but not until we're
ready. (We'll be making some announcements this week or next which
will be relevant here).


> 1) Move your source archive over to http://sourceforge.net/.  Sponsored
> by VA Linux Systems, who now has incredible resources, this may soon
> prove to be _the_ place where developers and projects find each other.
> (This would incidentally mean that you wouldn't have to worry about
> maintaining servers.

Not _move_, but _mirror_, certainly. We also have another US-based
mirror coming online once the technicalities have been addressed.

> 2) Put out an "urgent call" for non-Japanese developers.  Try to get the
> story on Slashdot.  Since VA Linux Systems just acquired Andover (and
> thus Slashdot), this may be more successful in conjunction with (1).

For the timing of this, see above.



I think 2000 will be the year that Ruby grows explosively in the US
and Europe. The trick will be not making promises we can't keep. The
implicit promise when we bring people in to the fold is "we'll support 
you". Right now, we don't have the stuff in place to do that.


Regards

Dave