From: Jake McArthur <jake.mcarthur@...>
Date: 2006-05-04T23:48:59+09:00
Subject: Re: Sharp knives and glue

I was doing a good job staying out of this thread, but no more. I  
have been too annoyed at the lack of understanding, and while I don't  
expect to single-handedly change anybody's mind, I wish to point out  
what is going wrong here.

> If Ruby wants to become more [than] a niche language that's currently
> getting 15 minutes of fame because of Rails [...]

I'm going to go slightly off topic because this is just not true.  
Ruby was getting extremely popular in Japan long before Rails. I  
myself, in America, used Ruby for at least a year before I ever heard  
of Rails.

> Perhaps you should go back and read the entirety of my posts [...]

You keep claiming that we are not paying you attention, but we are,  
and I think it's feeding the troll. Yes, I said it, this has been  
reduced to a troll thread. The problem here is not that we are not  
paying you enough attention or misunderstanding you. The problem is  
in quite the other direction.

> My premise is that Ruby is not ready for enterprise use because the
> inability to predict the behavior of programs.

You are seeing this wrong. The ability to change the behavior of a  
class is a _feature_, definitely not a bug. You know this, but you  
refuse to just accept it.

> If one cannot predict the
> behavior of programs, one cannot test the programs.

Not true. Properly tested code will not be screwed up unknown by  
meddling with it. If your testing practices are good (especially  
extensive use of mock objects), then method-changing and duck-typing  
will not mess up the program if the tests pass.

> If one cannot test the
> programs, one cannot deploy the programs into environments that have
> significant regulation (e.g., financial services, health care,  
> insurance,
> etc.)

Properly tested programs are _tested_ under every environment they  
are meant be introduced to, so this is no argument.

Frankly, I think your arguments are quite ridiculous and I find it  
hard to believe that you are the very, very good programmer that you  
say you are. Sorry to be harsh, but quit trying to lead everybody on.

- Jake McArthur