From: Gregory Carl Kettler <gckettle@...>
Date: 2001-12-12T11:13:57+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:28305] Re: Survey for new Rubyists

1) How did you find out about Ruby?

I was browsing Sourceforge, and saw it mentioned there, and decided to
read up on it.

2) Prior to finding Ruby, what programming language(s) did you primarily 
use?

Perl or C++.

3) (this question is for folks coming from PythonLand or PerlLand)
What Python or Perl modules do you miss most and wish that Ruby had?

All of the Bioperl modules, especially Bio::Tools::BPlite, 
Bio::Seq, and Bio::SeqIO

4) (follow-up to #3) Would the lack of these modules preclude you from 
using Ruby?

It has so far, except for minor experimentation.  I'll be trying more RSN.

5) Do you think you'll be using Ruby at work in the next:
  3 months?   6 months?  (or do you already use it at work?)

Probably as soon as I need to write something non-trivial that I
would have done in Perl and that doesn't need Bioperl.

6) (follow-up to #4) If you don't forsee being able to use Ruby at work 
within the next 6 months, what is the main reason keeping you from using 
it there?

See above; beyond the lack of modules I don't see any big problems.  Since
I work in a biology lab (did you guess?) and am pretty much handling the
bioinformatics side by myself, I don't have to convince anyone else to
switch languages.

	Gregory Kettler
	Grr! Geek yet LOTR.

"There will be a general shift in emphasis (of sequence analysis
especially) from genes themselves to gene products.  This will lead to
fewer DNA double-helices in bad sci-fi movies."
	-- http://bioinformatics.org/faq/