From: Charles O Nutter Date: 2006-08-18T06:21:54+09:00 Subject: Re: Ruby is exploding onto the scene as Java did at the end of 1990s ------=_Part_174298_20158199.1155849712287 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline On 8/17/06, Francis Cianfrocca wrote: > > How does Ruby help any of these players (or others) achieve their > business goals? (I'm not questioning that there may be a good answer > to this question, nor am I trying to start a flamewar. I do think it > could be helpful if we come up with the answers rather than waiting > for them to come from someone else.) > I think there's a short answer that would please almost everyone: Ruby makes development cheaper, more fun, and more compelling than it has been since the late 90s. Folks seem to so quickly forget that before Java came on the scene, most web development was based on CGI, usually using Perl. The reason Java managed to almost completely take over that space in a very short time is simple: it was far, far more consumable than your average large-scale mid-90s Perl-based web application. I had to maintain a few of those applications, and man was it a boon to web development and Java (and others like PHP) came along. Suddenly building web applications wasn't an exercise in pain (or at least, not as much pain) and the explosion of applications going into 1999 and 2000 demonstrates that others felt the same way. I believe that we're right at the cusp of a renassaince for web application development. The whole Web 2.0 nonsense is part of it, but has really only enabled richer UIs on already-available thin clients (i.e. browsers). The real revolution is on the server side, and that's where Ruby and Rails come in. Ruby in general makes all sorts of applications easier to build, maintain, and evolve. Rails specifically makes web application development far easier and more consumable than practically anything else, despite naysayer's claims. Easier development and more powerful abstractions lead to faster and greater innovation, and innovation will spur another IT boom (hopefully without such a painful crash this time). I think the business motivation for these big players to buy into Ruby is simple: backing Ruby, funding Ruby projects, and building Ruby domain expertise will help further the language that is (in my opinion) most likely to increase demand for the software, hardware, and services that come along with a really smashing development boom. If any one of those companies could claim expertise in Ruby, support for running Ruby in concert with their software and hardware solutions, and services for helping advance Ruby, build Ruby applications, and support Ruby development work...they'd be betting on a pretty solid horse. Beyond that, assuming this whole Ruby thing pans out, there's the spoils of early adoption to be reaped. In 3 years, if Ruby is truly the big ticket that Java has become, and if (for example) Sun can claim they've been a Ruby backer all that time, people are going to be much more likely to trust that Sun software, Sun services, and Sun hardware are the most Ruby-friendly on the market. Google has captured mindshare these days because of that exact situation: they figured shit out first, and now everyone else is playing catch-up. All the other companies you listed are suffering from a serious "boring" complex, afraid to bank on anything but their tried-and-true stand-bys. If one of them were to break ranks and bet on Ruby...things would get seriously interesting. There's also a business motivation for us Rubyists: big-time backing for Ruby would help convince employers and development shops that Ruby has arrived...and the peripheral effects of such a move would make convincing all those PHBs to use Ruby or Rails for some application far easier. -- Contribute to RubySpec! @ www.headius.com/rubyspec Charles Oliver Nutter @ headius.blogspot.com Ruby User @ ruby.mn JRuby Developer @ www.jruby.org Application Architect @ www.ventera.com ------=_Part_174298_20158199.1155849712287--