From: Isaac Gouy <igouy@...>
Date: 2005-09-23T06:26:39+09:00
Subject: Re: Large Ruby Apps ?

Rick Nooner wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 23, 2005 at 04:51:40AM +0900, Isaac Gouy wrote:
> > Austin Ziegler wrote:
> > > On 9/22/05, Isaac Gouy <igouy@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > > Ara.T.Howard wrote:
> > > > -snip-
> > > > > line one is an error.
> > > > > line two core dumps.
> > > > > line three will hang your machine.
> > > >
> > > > Humbly suggest that C is not the poster child for static type checking
> > > > :-)
> > > > iirc C is not even considered to be type safe.
> > >
> > > Humbly suggest that the same applies to Java (java.lang.Object,
> > > anyone?), C++, and even C#. The only type safe statically checked
> > > language that I've used is Ada.
> > >
> > > C is statically checked and weakly typed. Ara's point remains the same
> > > -- the compiler doesn't complain about these very *obvious*
> > > programming errors.
> > >
> > > -austin
> > > --
> > > Austin Ziegler * halostatue@gmail.com
> > >                * Alternate: austin@halostatue.ca
> >
> >
> > I'm not interested in quarreling about the meaning of phrases, so I use
> > textbook definitions - for "type safety" and "strong typing" see p271
> > "Programming Languages: Application and Interpretation"
> > http://www.cs.brown.edu/~sk/Publications/Books/ProgLangs/
> >
> > Java is considered type safe; C++ (because of the C subset) is not.
> >
> > Ara make's a good point about C, which doesn't generalize to other
> > statically type checked languages.
> >
>
> I also think that if strong type checking is important to you, you should
> use a language that does it well.  Look at OCaml or Haskell.
>
> I think you'll find that Ruby is more practical and you'll get more real
> work done with it than most other languages.
>
> Ara's earlier comment about tloc vs. bugs regardless of the language is
> very relevant.  Many of the systems that I've written in Ruby, while
> between 5,000 to 10,000 lines of code each, correspond to 50,000 to 100,000
> lines of code in C++ or even Java.  Not only is my development time
> cut to a 10th but so is my debugging time.  I think that it's telling that
> I've never had to start a debugger on my Ruby code.  That certainly isn't
> the case with my C/C++ or Java code.
>
> Oh, and I've been writing large C systems since the mid 80's.

Have you been writing large C++ / Java systems long enough to support
the claim of 10x size difference? Do you have any data, or is 10x a
nice sounding guess?

Are you doing the same kind of task in Ruby that you did with
C/C++/Java?

>
> Another reason that I'm able to use Ruby where I work is that I don't have
> to have a multi-man, multi-month or multi-year project for things that I
> used to.  There are two people on my team.  This saves the company money in
> more than one way.
>
> I'm not saying that there isn't a place for such projects, just that languages
> like Ruby have lowered the barrier such that many projects don't have to be
> large anymore.
>
> Rick
> 
> -- 
> Rick Nooner
> rick@nooner.net
> http://www.nooner.net