From: Rick DeNatale Date: 2009-02-12T21:56:18+09:00 Subject: Re: If you are happy with the direction of Ruby 1.8.7+, respond --0016361649e7e1b83d0462b843ae Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 6:35 PM, Gregory Brown wrote: > On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 5:11 PM, _why wrote: > > > Folks, I'd stay away from the heavy-handed approach with Matz. He > > doesn't respond to a mob. And despite all the hype and business that > > now revolves around Ruby, it's still the man's language and his life > > work. > > Ah, but it's not Matz's issue. I actually love Ruby 1.9.1, and every > time I ask Matz about this he says "I don't maintain 1.8". > The issue is not with change, but with change that something that was > previously labeled non-changing in a defacto way . > Right to the point! I too love Ruby 1.9.1 and Matz! but... Ruby 1.8 (excluding 1.8.7) and Ruby 1.9 are really two different languages, I can deal with that as long as I know, and can control which of the two I'm using at any given time for any given application. Matz ceded maintenance of the "1.8" stream and moved on to 1.9 some time ago. The 1.8.7 release, rather than simply fixing bugs and maintaining compatibility, was attracted by "shiny objects" from 1.9 and wreaked havoc on some important consumers of Ruby, exacerbated by the eagerness of downstream package maintainers to keep up without understanding the ramifications of the breach of the implication of compatibility between versions with the same minor version number. Ruby 1.8.6 represents the latest version of the old Ruby language, 1.9.1 is the latest version of the new Ruby language, Ruby 1.8.7 is a mutant which just muddies the waters. -- Rick DeNatale Blog: http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/ Twitter: http://twitter.com/RickDeNatale --0016361649e7e1b83d0462b843ae--