From: Alex Young <alex@...>
Date: 2007-03-28T03:17:27+09:00
Subject: Re: On Enterprise Ruby

Gregory Seidman wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 28, 2007 at 01:06:20AM +0900, Alex Young wrote:
>> Alexey Verkhovsky wrote:
> [...]
>>> Whenever someone says "not ready for the enterprise", the E-word usually
>>> stands for "large companies whose core business is not software".
>>>
>>> These places typically have post-technical managers in charge of strategic
>>> IT decisions, lots of money to throw at IT problems (much more than a Web
>>> 2.0 startup), and a zoo of systems and applications, spanning the last 25
>>> years of the history of computing. Some of those applications need to share
>>> data and otherwise cooperate.
> [...]
>> Defined like that, the statement "Ruby isn't ready for the enterprise" 
>> is just as easily reversed - "this enterprise isn't ready for Ruby."  I 
>> say this because there certainly are enterprises using Ruby, and using 
>> it well, now - you're actually in a better position than me to know the 
>> truth of this.
> 
> Of Ruby and "the enterprise," which do you suppose is Mohammed and which is
> the mountain? Thinking in terms of enterprises needing to wise up and take
> advantage of what Ruby/Rails has to offer for their own good is at best
> altruistic and at worst self-delusional. 
My point was that either viewpoint is as valid as the other, not to say 
that I prefer either one.  It all depends on the specific enterprise in 
question.

<snip>
> I actually wrote a lot more after that paragraph, but it wound up being
> just a tangent. Ultimately, it is in our best interests to bring Ruby to
> the enterprise, and to do so actively rather than allowing someone who has
> *their* best interests in mind do it for us. 
We can only do that if we know what is missing, and what is not good 
enough.  I don't know if it's possible to do a good enough job of 
filling in the gaps without actually being *in* the enterprise in 
question, with first-hand knowledge of the problem at hand.

-- 
Alex