From: Brad Phelan Date: 2007-09-26T21:15:05+09:00 Subject: Re: Recent Criticism about Ruby (Scalability, etc.) Ruby Maniac wrote: > On Sep 25, 7:01 am, Glenn Gillen wrote: >>> So yeah, get out your checkbooks and write more checks for more >>> servers and sure Ruby scales just fine ! >>> Ruby Rocks ! >> 2 years x 1 developer @ $70k = 58x Dell PowerEdge 860 Quad Core Xeon >> X3210s >> >> Job Security Rocks! > > Ruby is infintely scalable as long as you got the bucks to pay for all > that hardware ! (*Just forget the fact that another language might > have saved some money in compute gear. I mean, don't even think about > this at-all. Why are you still reading this sentence? I told you to > forget about what those 58 server cost... Money is irrelevant to those > who love Ruby! *) > > Ruby Rocks ! > The 58 servers next year will cost half as much. The developer next year will cost the same or more. I work in embedded systems. The hardware / software cost analysis turns out different here. An embedded system will typically be deployed on thousands and sometimes millions of devices. Here it is worth saving pennies on compute hardware by spending big $$$ on software development and trying to keep the code as small and optimized as possible. You will still find many cheap 8bit and 16bit computers running your cars, phones and refrigerators. The cost of finding developers who can deal properly with those sorts of devices is not cheap. However for a web server with a hardware deployment footprint orders of magnitude lower than an embedded systems deployment it doesn't make sense to try to save money on hardware. Where you will blow your budget is with the software developers. With regards to Python/Ruby speed issues. I am currently watching a complex scheduling algorithm ticking by very slowly in a shell while I write this post. The algorithm should should have been written in C/C++ and not in Python/Psyco or Ruby and I am going nuts waiting for it to complete. ( BTW I didn't write it ) B