From: Isaac Gouy <igouy@...>
Date: 2005-09-23T08:41:40+09:00
Subject: Re: Large Ruby Apps ?

Rick Nooner wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 23, 2005 at 06:26:39AM +0900, Isaac Gouy wrote:
> > Rick Nooner wrote:
> > >
> > > 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?
>
> Hmmm...  I think I said that I've been doing this for a long time.

You said you'd been doing C for a long time - you didn't say you'd been
doing Java and C++ for a long time.

> Just in
> case you are wondering, I have written realtime systems in both the Nuclear
> Power industry and more recently in telecommunications.  I've also spent
> time in the video game industry (but that really was a long time ago and was
> all in assembly.)  Interestingly enough, the arguments were pretty much the
> same when discussing the move from assembly to C (and fortran to C).  In fact,
> looking back to the early 70's, there is a series of computer science text
> books by McGraw Hill that discusses the transition from doing systems
> programming in assembly vs PL/1 that uses almost identical arguments that
> we use today about "scripting" lanaguages.  I'll have to get the name of the
> book when I get home tonight.
>
> Interestingly enough, these arguments were were formulated based on my
> observations over the past two decades independently of those in this book
> which I only found in the last couple of weeks.  Others have made the same
> observations, also indepenently.  Has there been a formal study?  Not that
> I know of.  I can only speak from my own experience.  YMMV.

So 10x is a nice sounding guess.

>
> > Are you doing the same kind of task in Ruby that you did with
> > C/C++/Java?
>
> In the telecommunications world, yes.  In fact, with some systems, it was
> quicker and easier to reimplement them in Ruby, adding new features in
> the process than to just add the new features in the original languages.

Did you do both? Did you re-implement the systems in Ruby, and
implement the new features in the original languages? If not, aren't we
simply assuming it was quicker and easier.


None of this has anything to do with whether it's more productive to
use a high-level language with an appropriate framework, rather than
using a systems programming language - it has a lot to do with
separating data from assumption.


>
> Rick
> 
> -- 
> Rick Nooner
> rick@nooner.net
> http://www.nooner.net