From: Kyle Schmitt <kyleaschmitt@...>
Date: 2007-11-27T06:17:05+09:00
Subject: Re: "Why I Program In Ruby (And Maybe Why You Shouldn't)"

After suppressing the urge to rant and scream troll subsided, there
are a few good points, though I don't think they are precisely for the
reasons you state.

Yes, ruby needs a better definition of what it's standard library is,
and needs utf support at the core.  I don't think this is for lack of
proper development or leadership however.

Jruby, unless I'm very mistaken, has utf8 support.  Basic proof that
it's fully possible to do.  Why haven't people fixed it in the core
ruby yet?  Well, they're working on Ruby 2.0 instead of backporting
major effort into the 1.8.  That's fine with me (as long as, of
course, it gets done eventually ;).

What is installed as a GEM doesn't need to be installed as a gem, it
can be installed as a ruby library, as part of the distro or OSes
ruby.  So aside from defining what _needs_ to be there, it's an easy
fix.  (yes finding enough influential and knowledgeable people to
agree and define it will be a problem).

Graphical toolkit.  Every graphical toolkit will have it's pros, cons,
lovers and haters, not to mention the dozen platforms with their own
special graphical toolkits ruby is used on.
Ruby _needs_ multiple, good toolkits.
Anyway, AFAIK rubytk is only "default" on the windows one click
installer: other platforms don't really consider it default.  Gtk2 for
ruby is just as easy to install as the rubytk libs, and probably has
just as many or more supporters now.

Just a few retorts, though in many ways, I do have similar worries.

Cheers.

--Kyle