From: Joost Diepenmaat <joost@...>
Date: 2008-08-23T05:26:07+09:00
Subject: Re: A Mascot...

Avdi Grimm <avdi@avdi.org> writes:

> From my point of view the ruby-mascot discussion is moot, because it's
> too late.  Perl got its camel (from the "Camel Book") in 1991.  (Or
> maybe it already had the camel before the book, I'm not sure).  Python
> has had... well, a Python since basically its inception.  BSD's daemon
> originated in 1976(!).  Linux has had Tux since 1996.

Note that Perl's camel is not actually the official mascot; it just
looks like that because for years by far the best book on perl had
that camel on the cover. Perl/Camel combinations are still AFAIK an
O'Reilly trademark.

IIRC Amsterdam.pm even got in some hot water with O'Reilly for
suggesting this as a logo for the Amsterdam edition of YAPC-Europe,
some years ago:

http://amsterdam.pm.org/.32PyNd.gif

> Ruby has been around since the mid 90s and still has no
> widely-recognized mascot.  At this point I think it's a little late to
> be trying to "backport" in a mascot.  It would just feel forced and
> artificial.
>
> However, if some folks feel we absolutely *must* have a mascot, I
> nominate a nice thick slice of chunky bacon.


Getting to the point: whatever "the ruby logo/mascot" will be(come),
will be whatever iconic image is on "the best ruby book". Personally,
when I think about a ruby logo at all, I think of the "ruby gem" that
pragmatic programmers uses. Not much of a mascot, though.

Still, ruby is 45 years younger than Lisp, and THEY don't have any
kind of standard mascot either: http://lisperati.com/logo.html

-- 
Joost Diepenmaat | blog: http://joost.zeekat.nl/ | work: http://zeekat.nl/