From: Leslie Viljoen <leslieviljoen@...>
Date: 2006-08-18T06:15:12+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby is exploding onto the scene as Java did at the end of 1990s

On 8/17/06, Patrick Hurley <phurley@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/17/06, Francis Cianfrocca <garbagecat10@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Ruby currently faces a totally different market dynamic (and set of
> > opportunities) because its community is perceived as having a
> > significant anti-business streak to it, as Linux did in its early
> > days.
>
> Really?, I have never picked up an anti-business vibe from the Ruby
> community. I get the impression that most people here are professional
> programmers who love Ruby and either use it in business or would love
> to do so. The Ruby license (unlike the GPL) is very business friendly.

I would certainly love to program in Ruby professionally, and so would
the few programmers I know personally who know Ruby. Unfortunately
that amounts to about 5. I have also yet to see a single book about
Ruby in a South African book store.

I think the more hype and marketing Ruby get the better - it changes
it from an unknown quantity into something that deserves
investigation. People are SO slow to explore new possibilities, I
really think that if Visual Studio didn't suddenly come with C# as the
primary .NET platform language, and with all the associated Microsoft
hype, few would have bothered. (Look at 'D' for example - great
language, but has anyone heard of it?)

I don't think Ruby has to go one direction or another, or change to
become more attractive, it's already the most programming fun I've
seen in years - it just needs more publicity so more people get to
know it and take it seriously. Teach it in schools!

My own effort is to prototype a lot of new development in Ruby and
showcase it before rewriting it into the mandated languages. The other
developers are noticing how simple and elegant the Ruby solution
always is! Now if the next Visual Studio could include Ruby...

Les