Re: ruby-talk best practices

> A really nice write-up of the common sense we all sometimes ignore.
> The emphasis on MINASWAN is particularly welcome.

Haha I recall some comment on youtube when Matz gave a keynote lecture.

And the comments field was put with "matz is like buddha, people around 
him start to smile for no obvious reason".

Anyway, I rarely get too emotional over written text at all. I have seen 
too many heat discussions on various boards, and the worst was when some 
reallife friends of mine - we shared a common forum for various 
interests hobbies etc.. - got into a quarrel. (I was inactive during 
that time on that forum, due to some other problems, as the time in 
general was not that easy).

To cut a long story short - people should really not get too emotional 
over written text at all. People should really never get too emotional 
over written text.

Now to a few points I would like to make about the "Ruby best 
practices":

- I think ruby as community is in general very open-minded for new 
ideas, but at the same time ruby as language is quite rigid in concepts. 
I.e. it can take a long time before something "changes". Everyone has 
another suggestion, and one has to keep things together under one hood 
in order to create _and_ sustain an elegant language.

I think it is also good that more and more people can start coding. It 
means that coding does not remain a niche for C gurus only; it also 
means that "dumber" people who only use scripting languages will express 
their visions and ideas, and the more of these the better IMHO. An idea 
is rarely bad. Often it can be used provocatively to generate a new idea 
(or pave way for creating new ideas.)
I.e. to use lateral thinking to come to new conclusions, or purposely 
take up a new point of view. (Of course, taking a new point of view 
during a heated  discussion is difficult - who wants to "give back" at 
all to arguments if one can use his intellect to attack those arguments, 
or the person who presented them instead?)

- As far as changes to ruby are concerned... if i would have the 
knowledge and time, I would redo ruby. I would simplify it a lot. That 
would be my first goal. Yes, some of you can not believe this, but I 
think ruby is not simple enough. :) Another change I would make would be 
to extend documentation a lot. I mean, I think if stdlib components have 
a documentation that is lacking, I would throw it out (or improve on 
that documentation), but it really is annoying to have a lacking 
documentation....

Also, I guess I would reevaluate rubygems so that projects like 
http://hellorip.com/about.html would never have a "need" to be created.
I would also try to unify for all scripting languages, so that they can 
focus on SHARING their ideas, no matter the underlying code (i.e. which 
language is used). It strikes me as silly that some languages have cpan 
pears etc... and others will only have that when someone ports it. :/


- About "Don't top-post"

I agree on that. It is annoying if one reads from top-to-the-bottom.

- 'How do I do foo?”, but first apply some due diligence. Use Google. 
Use ruby-doc.org'

I disagree on that. I think if people want to know something, they 
should ask. I dont think it helps to tell people to go away and learn 
ruby first, before asking questions. Other than that I agree with the 
rest of what was written there.


- Be specific

Agreed completely.

- Don't threadjack.

Not sure. I think it depends on the definition of threadhijacking.
Personally I think as long as the DISCUSSION FLOW is still going on, it 
is totally fine to "divert" a bit. It really depends on the issue at 
hand as well.

To me it rather sounds as if someone is trying to impose his point of 
view onto me, as if I am required to follow a certain way to "discuss" 
something.

People should really be freely able to discuss it, and if the thread 
moves in a wrong direction, people can point it out easily. I really 
dont think this should be part of "best practise".

- Repetition is not an argument

Not repetition, but whatever was written may very well be valid, even if 
someone disagrees. People will rarely change their opinion anyway.
I really dont see the problem here. People can have different opinions 
all the time. They usually dont try to *convince* others either - this 
is futile - but they want to make strong points. It is as if one is 
self-reflecting about his/her own arguments...

- Watch for perma-threads

Disagree here. If I would always have to dig through the whole list, I 
would never even bother. It would just be too much work.

- Walk the walk

This is problematic. I agree partially, but since facets was mentioned:
I think the idea of facets is fine, but it should be in stdlib, and if 
it is not I dont really see a need to use something like facets. I just 
bundle along the changes I want to have into my app anyway. (The 
situation would be different if facets would be an official "standard").

"Then explain why it needs to be added to the language rather than used 
as a gem."

This is futile. There were many threads about this or that addition, 
most were rejected, and this is EXACTLY why facets was started in the 
first place (and to not have too many different projects face the same 
dilemma)

And I also think proposals to the ruby language in most situations are 
just a waste of time for anyone who does it. Maybe I am wrong here, but 
I would be interested to see solid numbers on that, i.e. how many 
proposed something, and how much was rejected/accepted. I think the 
number of rejections will be largely higher - so much that I would say 
it is futile... ;)

My experience here is that, given a large pool of people, there will 
ALWAYS be a group who absolutely HATE something. (This is the cool thing 
in ruby btw, because it is so flexible that it doesnt really matter. 
Just extend a class in ruby with your changes, and thats it.)

Anyway, I guess anything that helps newcomers is a good thing. 
Personally I would focus much more on the "do's" than on the "don'ts". I 
found it easier to focus on what is "good", than what is a "strict rule 
you should never break" which could invoke happy trolls trolling all 
over the place with asking pseudo-trolling questions.
-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.