From: Robert Klemme Date: 2009-04-13T00:50:02+09:00 Subject: Re: Can Ruby stay ahead ? On 11.04.2009 21:14, Charles Oliver Nutter wrote: > The truth is the C implementations of Ruby are only one part of our > quest to conquer the world...there are a lot of developers out there on > existing VMs and platforms that need to be brought into the fold. And > they're not going to leave those platforms. The best way to bring them > over is to embrace the Ruby implementations for those platforms, and do > everything possible to make sure they're top-notch. The alternative is > losing mindshare to languages like Groovy or Scala on the JVM or > IronPython, F#, or C# on the CLR. But why do you say those people "_need_ to be brought into the fold"? Do we (or Ruby) really loose something if we do not insist on converting the world over to Ruby? > But this also raises another question: Does the Ruby community want to > be all-inclusive? More and more I see Ruby groups splintering into the > "regulars" and the "elites", and sometimes the elite groups splinter > even further. Many of the Ruby old guard want to keep Ruby an exclusive > club, and I think that elitism hurts the community. I view this differently: to me it seems the Ruby community feels little urge to evangelize (apart from Rails maybe) which I find very pleasant. IMHO this is not the attempt to keep others out but rather an attitude of letting everybody pick the tools that suit them best. If it is not Ruby, then that's perfectly OK. I find this quite a laid back approach and it is certainly one of the things that makes this community such a nice place to be for me. > I believe it's important for Ruby to continue growing and to draw in as > many Java, .NET, and other platform developers as possible. Why? Do you fear extinction of this wonderful programming language? Ruby is here to stay. Even if development of the language would stop right now (what I do not hope) it does not stop being useful to a lot of people. Kind regards robert