Re: Why Ruby?

Il giorno 30/dic/08, alle ore 12:35, Robert Dober ha scritto:

>> It is indeed the ignorance that rules today. This ignorance however =20=

>> is
> nothing a single person has to be ashamed of. It is imposed by
> ridiculously short decision times, extreme budget pressure and an
> overall stressful environment.
> I am not capable of quoting any studies on this and would welcome any
> pointers. It is however quite obvious (my favourite prove method ;),
> that the pressure which exists in our professional lives discourages
> reflexion, deep understanding of what we are doing and innovative
> decisions. It is my believe that the winning business model will be
> one that breaks this vicious circle.

I disagree, I know a bit of how "pointy haired bosses" think (they =20
tried to turn me into something like that several times, unfortunately =20=

for them there's a small Zed Shaw in me and they can't destroy my =20
"your shit sucks and now you die" attitude :p) and I think the biggest =20=

problem is availability and cost of resources.
At the end they are something very close to end-users, they care about =20=

the final result, and of course they're not enough educated to make =20
decisions that actually make sense on the tech side. What they see is =20=

that they can choose between a bunch of developers with medium/high =20
salaries and a million of developers with medium/low salaries. What =20
they normally think is: let's take 20 junior developers and hire a =20
senior that acts_as_babysitter. That's the reason under the =20
outsourcing madness too, developers are exchangeable.
I think that the problem here is not companies or management, but =20
pretty much developers. If the only reason you choose a technology is =20=

the market:

a) In my opinion your skills are poor. In general, if "joy" isn't part =20=

of your choice you're a poor developer
b) They put themselves in the position of being exchangeable, they all =20=

have the same skillset, the same mindset, the same level of =20
disinterest about their job.

Corporations especially are particularly good in this, they behave =20
with every project as it already failed, that's why they always try to =20=

keep development costs as low as possible. The reason is simple, they =20=

often fail.

> My personal experience is that when I am talking to a decision taker
> about Ruby and she asks me why, my first sentence is already
> completely misunderstood - I am well aware of my responsibility in
> this kind of misunderstanding. But I never get a chance to discuss
> matters during say an hour. The cherry on top of the cream was one
> internal encounter with the decision maker, where I suggested to stop
> developpement in Java and start with Ruby using JRuby for an easy
> transition. This was considered to much risk taking and too much time
> consuming (sic). After presenting my case (1800s) the aforementioned
> response was made in less than 300s. Immediately after that they
> stalled the project for two months (yes that is 5184000s, you got that
> right) in which they discussed a migration from Java to C#(1). I have
> not stayed along to experience the outcome of this.... one has only
> one stomach you know :(

Yes, we all have this kind of stories :)
Mine is from my pre-Ruby days, where I used to be a Python developer.
One of the biggest banks in Italy hired me to develop an internal =20
project in Python, they gave me 3 months (without asking me a damn). =20
After less than 2 month I was over, wrote the test suite (I remember =20
doing a no-no after the other, testing libraries, frameworks, just =20
because I was bored). The project, after 3 years, is still in =20
production. They switched to PHP of course, they weren't able to find =20=

enough Python developers, they didn't think at me whining because I =20
was bored, finishing my project a lot before, releasing it with an =20
uptime of years and without a single problem in all this time. They =20
wanted numbers.
This is idiotic I know.
At least, after a few days of doing nothing, I rewrote the whole =20
project in RubyOnRails (and finished it !!!), and actually felt in =20
love :)

> --=20
> Il computer non =E8 una macchina intelligente che aiuta le persone
> stupide, anzi, =E8 una macchina stupida che funziona solo nelle mani
> delle persone intelligenti.
> Computers are not smart to help stupid people, rather they are stupid
> and will work only if taken care of by smart people.
>
> Umberto Eco

I see that Abulafia is well known outside Italy as well :)
I love "Il pendolo di Focault" as well, one of my favourites.

   ngw

--=20
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