From: LAMBEAU Bernard <blambeau@...>
Date: 2009-01-13T18:20:00+09:00
Subject: Re: General questions

Well, I'm exactly in the same position as you are: having programmed
in Java during years, relatively new to Ruby.

I've always thought that compile time type checking, or static typing
for short, (you say that Ruby is not typed, it isn't exactly true:
Ruby is dynamically typed, but I guess that's what you had in mind)
was the only way to get professionnal projects that perdure. I still
think that static typing may help writing good programs that are
reusable by others.

Even if I'm not currently involved in a professional Ruby project, I'm
pretty much convinced today that it's perfectly possible to achieve
the same goal in Ruby: look at good gems, well written, well
documented, well tested. The difference to me is precisely there:
documentation and tests. As your methods does not announce their
argument types (and even, can simulate a lot of different signatures),
you need to document it rigourously (and that's good: argument types
are far from a real documentation). As they don't announce the type of
the result, you have to document it rigorously as well (same remark as
before). And because your documentation could be wrong (because of a
bug in the implementation, for example) you have to apply test driven
development.

Of course, I'm not saying that Java projects are badly documented or
tested (there's a lot of good open-source Java libraries that I use
everyday), nor that what I've said above is the only way to program in
Ruby. But it sounds to me that, quite strangely, Ruby helps you much
more than Java in achieving your goal of writing good programs. Maybe
because I'm not as comfortable in Ruby than in Java, and that it
forces me to code better.

blambeau

On Tue, Jan 13, 2009 at 2:51 AM, Pierre Pat <theyojimbo@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear folks,
>
> I've been interested in Ruby for quite a while now, but since I'm
> unfortunately not doing it professionally, I don't have time to get
> deeper in it, which is frustrating me quite a bit.
> That's why I've decided to start looking for a Ruby developer position.
>
> Since I've only coded Ruby for my own pleasure, I was wondering what the
> professional environment in Ruby looks like.
> Ruby is also said to be pretty maintainable. But since I've only worked
> professionally in Java, I somehow couldn't agree with that one.
> When I code for myself, I just have a few classes, and I know how to use
> them. And my code wouldn't really be more then a few hundred lines.
> Since Ruby is not typed, one doesn't really know what to expect from a
> method call created by someone else without going to the method
> definition (hence, waste of time). In Java for instance, you have nice
> IDEs telling you what you have at each moment, which methods are
> available and so on. (Maybe new Ruby IDEs do it too, I only used
> "tweaked" text editors for my small needs)
> So jumping in a code which hasn't been written by yourself, how can you
> really maintain it?
> Since I jused to be a small Java coder, I guess this aspect of Ruby is
> for me the most difficult part (in order to be a daily Ruby coder, not a
> guru (yet)).
>
> If anyone has any advices about the professional world in Ruby, please
> feel free to comment.
>
> Also an other question regarding this forum.
> I also quite like Shoes/Raisins. And I haven't found any forum
> specificly for it.
> Since there is a specific forum for FXRuby or wxRuby, why not having one
> for Shoes?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Pierre
> --
> Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
>
>