From: benjohn@...
Date: 2006-07-25T20:29:32+09:00
Subject: Re: Proving Ruby's effectiveness

Hal:
> This is probably only tangential to what you need, but if it is of
> any value, here is an article from last year:
> http://www.devsource.com/article2/0,1895,1778695,00.asp

Thanks Hal, I've seen that before, and it's a good piece of evangalism.

> I suspect that numbers and stats such as your people want will be
> hard to come by. My impression is that 99% of what is out there is
> anecdotal reports and handwaving. (Frankly, outside the Ruby world
> as well as within it.)

They are available for other languages though. The problem is that to
acieve them you need to do a pretty serious study comparing languages,
and this is expensive. Really, you want to do at least two studies:

  A more academic one where you find experienced programmers in your
choice languages, and ask them to solve problems.

  A more practical exercise where you take some real (and comparable)
projects, and look at how various languages and frameworks compare.

I know I've seen a somewhat anecdotal example of the latter in someone's
blog. It did have actual numbers in it though, and I got the impression
is was backed up by the business doing research for its management
because they cared about the bottom line.

> Here's an idea: Take 3-4 small programming problems (the kind you
> might see in an undergrad ACM contest). Assuming you are proficient
> in Ruby, challenge their people to do the same in Java or C++ or
> whatever language. Time everyone to the minute (letting everyone
> finish to his satisfaction). Run all programs against a comprehensive
> test suite (to show how the other guys missed all the edge cases). ;)
> Finally show how the Ruby code is 4 or 5 times as compact.

Perhaps one day I'll have the time and money to do that :)

Cheers,
  Benj