From: Lyle Johnson <lyle.johnson@...>
Date: 2005-04-01T23:08:21+09:00
Subject: Re: Getting Ruby approved

On Mar 31, 2005 8:45 PM, Joe Van Dyk <joevandyk@gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm trying to get Ruby added to one of the "supported" OSS tools at Boeing.
> 
> I was asked this question:  "The question is, is Ruby bringing
> something extra to the table, that we can't do with Perl, Python, Tcl,
> Guile?  E.g., are there OSS packages that we want to use which need
> Ruby?"
> 
> I mentioned Rails and DRb as being the most useful applications of
> Ruby to me.  But can someone help me out with more?

Though it's not a direct answer to your question, I tend to agree with
some of the other replies that if you try to "sell" Ruby to your
co-workers (or the higher-ups) by comparing it to other languages'
features and applications, you're fighting a losing battle. I for one
would love to be there when you try to explain to your boss that
Boeing should adopt Ruby because it has closures. ;)

Having said that, if you haven't seen it already, you might want to
take a look at Andy Hunt's presentation on "Ruby Insurgency"
(presented at the first Ruby Conference back in 2001):

    http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/talks/Ruby/RubyInsurgency.pps.zip

This is sort-of the approach that I'm using here at work (where most
of our development work is done in Java), in an attempt to introduce
people to Ruby. I use Ruby for a lot of little maintenance tasks
involved in building our code, and when someone asks "How did you do
that?" or, "Can I get a copy of that program?", it gives me an
opportunity to tell them a little bit about Ruby.

Hope this helps,

Lyle