From: "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <znmeb@...>
Date: 2008-01-02T04:50:19+09:00
Subject: Re: Zed Shaw - Ruby has dodged a bullet

WesR wrote:
> On Dec 31 2007, 8:09 pm, James Britt <james.br...@gmail.com> wrote:
> ...
>> I liked the Ruby community better when it placed more emphasis on code
>> and less on personalities.
> 
> Here, here!
> 
> My own introduction to the sociology of Ruby was an episode where some
> individual thought that the wording of my question was a slight to
> Ruby, comparing it to Python, and attempted to start a long rant
> thread.
> 
> Fortunately, wiser heads simply answered my question with facts and
> suggestions, and I got my task done.
> 
> OTOH, I suppose those that there are two communities that need to be
> served as well the very task-oriented folks.
> 
> Perhaps we could have
> 
> comp.language.ruby.evaluation
> 
> for those that want to compare notes on what makes Ruby better or
> worse than other language and, indeed, what are the definitions of
> better or worse?
> 
> comp.language.ruby.preach_to_the_choir
> 
> for those take emotional sustenance from participation in the
> community and want to co-sustain.

Or comp.lang.factor, for people who still want to talk to Zed Shaw. ;)

But seriously, it's been a while since I spent a lot of time elsewhere
in the comp.lang tree. But my dim recollection of comp.lang.forth,
comp.lang.lisp, and comp.lang.fortran is that it was the same way there
-- newbies and old hands, flamewars and helpful hints, comparisons with
other languages, etc.

Of course, the difference between those three languages and Ruby is that
those three have been around a lot longer -- in the case of FORTRAN and
LISP, since the very dawn of programming languages -- and have settled
into their niches, have ANS standards and committees, etc. Ruby has yet
to do either. And judging by the success of the other major scripting
languages -- Perl, Python and PHP -- without them, Ruby may be able to
get along "forever" without a true "niche" or a "standards committee".