[ruby-talk:17008] Re: Poll results

Hi all

Have been following the discussion regarding who should control the language 
growth.  I have nothing against committees.  No that痴 a lie.  Anyhow my 
$0.02 or with our dollar $0.002 cents worth.

Matz (I hope its ok to use your short name ) I believe is the sole author of 
the language and has invested a lot of time and effort in design and 
development (promotion is another story).  Until he is willing to pass on 
the development to a committee or person due to other commitments, time or 
boredom, the language should stay in his control.  It is his baby and 
ultimately his decision.

The only thing I would like to see is maybe a sharing of development to 
speed up the bug fixes and more timely stable versions.  From the messages I 
can see that there are a number of very bright individuals in this group.  
Their comments and observations keep the language evolving nicely.  You know 
who you are.

Design by committee from history and experience is the road to madness.  
Some of the most innovative languages have been developed by a single person 
or a few designers.   Take C, Pascal and C# as examples, and then look at 
what happened to  C++ (apologies to the C++ people out there).  While Matz 
has certain ideas about language which seem esoteric (from my point of view) 
I believe he has a better vision of the future and I知 hanging on for the 
thrill of the ride.

I was also looking at using Ruby as a teaching tool for OO programming (yes 
I知 an academic if you want to hold it against me).  A few of the features I 
think would be hard to explain to students without a good grounding in OO 
(my feeling and I would have a hell of a time convincing other lecturers, 
"you want to use what?").  I think Java will do nicely for now :)

BTW love the Ruby book thanks Dave.  Made the language a whole lot more fun 
to learn.  I still remember the goose bumps when I read the initial 
translated introduction to Ruby.  Looking forward to the new book from Matz 
if it ever gets published :(  And a big hallo and thankyou to Matz for 
creating a language that puts a smile on my face and in my head.  The man is 
just too dam clever.

Sorry for rambling on, you know us academics all gas bags

Cheers

Srecko







Dave Thomas <[e-mail]> wrote in news:Nfy_6.76023
$[e-mail]:

> 
> Oh what a conservative bunch are we. The poll at RubyGarden.org just
> closed. In response to the question "What's the best process for
> changing Ruby?", the panel of 150 experts said:
> 
> 
>     Make suggestions and let Matz decide    65.33%   98
> 
>     Write Ruby-in-Ruby so we can prototype  18.00%   27
>     new ideas easily
> 
>     Have a language committee vote on        15.33%  23
>     proposals
> 
>     Spawn off versions that each implement   0.67%    1
>     different ideas
> 
>     Ruby is perfect. Why change it?          0.67%    1
> 
> 
> Dave
> 
> 
>