From: Phlip <phlip2005@...>
Date: 2009-01-08T04:54:52+09:00
Subject: Re: Why Ruby?

Mike Stephens wrote:

> I have never seen or heard of Ruby in a corporate context. The single
> exception (where I first came across it) was a supplier who was using it
> with Watir for testing a Java application.

The shame they could not test Java with Java is overwhelming.

Obese platforms like Java are invented to sell to corporate managers.

> If you supply services to corporates, what sort of case can you make for
> using Ruby rather than Java, which is in use everywhere? (I'm not
> thinking of Rails here, which is a rather specialized).

The main selling point is: Getting twice the features written, in half the time, 
with 1/10th the lines of code, and with no bugs (under Test Driven Development).

Yes, Java supports TDD, but Ruby is a dynamic language. That makes everything 
easier, including the testing.

In Java, you must declare the class hierarchy for every interface, and you must 
declare which types are allowed in what variables. This overhead is remarkably 
similar to the (Taylorist) principle that to do anything in a big company you 
must first fill out your paperwork, in triplicate, get it approved by your 
managers' managers' managers, bury it in peat for a decade, etc. Java is an 
example of "overcontrol", yet that is exactly the selling point that Sun makes 
to your managers.

-- 
   Phlip