From: Ryan Leavengood <leavengood@...>
Date: 2005-10-04T21:17:30+09:00
Subject: Re: IBM vs. Microsoft vs. ... Ruby?

On 10/4/05, Michael Shigorin <mike@osdn.org.ua> wrote:
>
> Ruby wasn't an option due to exactly performance reasons.
> Even if people who code well could be found or trained by those
> who already do a bit (like me).  Even if he saw me developing
> .rb's much cleaner and smaller than what he could do in Perl
> and PHP back then when we worked together.
>
> *Evidence* on *mailing lists* isn't really anything.
> Talks don't weigh a lot and opinions are rarely paid for.

But did you actually *try* to code a simple example using ruby of the
kind of software your friend writes, to *prove* Ruby was too slow for
it? Maybe that is too much work (I don't really think so), but given
how much quicker and easier Ruby can be to develop as compared to
Java, it might have been worth it.

That way you wouldn't have to rely on the hearsay of the people on
this mailing list (or others filled with pro-Ruby developers.)

> I do know about Rite plans a bit, so please don't jump up
> explaining me that next version does :)  I happen to enjoy Ruby
> since 1.6 but also happen to know when it begins to crawl on me.

Yeah Ruby can certainly be slow in some cases, we all admit that.
Thank goodness we have YARV in the works...that should reduce the
"excuses" for not using Ruby by about 90% when it is released. I think
a lot of people blame Ruby's slowness when they decide to not use it,
when in reality they are just scared of something new.

Ryan