From: ptkwt@...1.aracnet.com (Phil Tomson)
Date: 2001-05-26T06:10:05+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:15731] Re: Wow! (impressed newbie)


In article <slrn9gtbau.9fr.sjr3a@busa.village.Virginia.EDU>,
Stephen Ramsay <sjr3a@busa.village.Virginia.EDU> wrote:
>I just got the Programming Ruby book a few days ago and have been reading it
>and writing lots of little programs.
>
>I am so impressed.  This is absolutely the cleanest, smartest language I've
>ever seen.  

Welcome!  

>
>I imagine that most of you know this already.  I really just wanted to ask
>where the greatest needs were in terms of language development with Ruby.  Do
>the greatest needs like with module extensions?  The language itself?
>Documentation?  Advocacy?
>

IMO the list greatest needs right now would be:

1) Extension modules
2) Infrastructure (improvement of RAA, making it perhaps more CPAN-like, 
maybe even better)
3) Documentation
[These first three are all pretty equal in importance, I think]
4) Publicity (Instead of Advocacy, a term that has gotten a bad name)
Python is doing very well in the publicity department right now with lots 
or articles being written lately.  By publicity I mean that the aim is to 
let people know that we're here and that Ruby presents a viable 
alternative.  We don't need the kind of advocacy that tends to hurt more 
than it helps ("Our language X users are so much [smarter, tolerant, ...] 
than those [stupid, intolerant,...] language Y users...").  We need 
publicity that educates potential users about the features of Ruby and 
what it can offer programmers.  

Anybody else got anything else to add...

Phil