From: Ollivier Robert Date: 2009-02-12T19:28:56+09:00 Subject: Re: If you are unhappy with the direction of Ruby 1.8.7+, respond In article , Alex Fenton wrote: >last night, and in particular Akinori MUSHA's statement: > >"Yes. Backporting syntactic changes is a big part of the plan for ruby >1.8.8" It boggles the mind to read that. I have an enormous respect for you Akinori-san for both your FreeBSD and Ruby work but that's poppycock. >Luckily I was in bed else I'd have fallen off my chair. This seems to me >the most bonkers development plan I've seen in a long while. > >Stable releases are meant to be *stable*; minor point releases are meant >to be *API compatible*, backwards and forwards. I can't think of any >other serious open-source project that would even contemplate adding >random bits of syntax and API calls in minor releases. +1000 I feel 1.8.7 is the biggest mistake the Ruby developers have made, it muddies the water about what are 1.8 and 1.9 (as if the problem about 1.9 not being ruby2 or rite or whatever it is called was not enough!), don't encourage people to move over to 1.9 at all. I also think this is an software engineering mistake as well. You *never* introduce API or language changes in a stable branch, ever. Worse, it was done in a *minor* revision. What are you guys smokin'? We don't need any glibc-like crazyness in Ruby, thanks. It is already difficult enough to advocate Ruby over Python already with the almost non existent Unicode/UTF-8 support (and quirky when something exist)... I also think m17n is way too complicated in 1.9 but that's another windmill to fight for. >I expressed the same opinion at length and with some fervour regarding >the release of 1.8.7: http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/150251#663291 So did I, several times. Sorry for ranting but seeing my favorite language go these ways is taking on me. -- Ollivier ROBERT -=- CND/COE/VI/SQ -=- EUROCONTROL Systems Quality & Support