From: Brian Wolf <brw314@...>
Date: 2010-02-03T03:29:30+09:00
Subject: Re: Why Ruby?

I'm more of application developer and  hacker than professional 
programmer, but I've  learned the rudiments and used to varying degree 
maybe 10 languages, and dabble in many, many more, and I seem to always 
checking out some new one, it's a fascinating evolution.  Learning Ruby 
is fun and a  good investment if this is what you like, the more 
languages you learn,  indirectly you learn more about  computer 
operating systems, theory, etc  and the easier it is to learn new ones. 
Each one has  a crowd of  passionate advocates. Ruby was very innovative 
when it first came out, it was the first language  specifically for 
rapid web site development,and has been very influential, but many of 
it's best ideas have been subsumed into Java (groovy, gails) and php 
(cake/php), for example. Ruby has a wonderful group  of users, and 
because of them it will probably continue to be very influential, but 
only  has a tiny market share. As an example, Twitter was founded on 
Ruby, however has found not to be sufficiently scalable.

Brian Wolf
gOgO development, ltd
sedona,az

 



Jim Maher wrote:
> I've asked several friends and associates (application developers) what
> programming language they recommend for new development.  The most
> prevalent answer was Ruby (with Ruby-On-Rails a close second).  This was
> surprising to me, since my understanding is that Java and C (et al) are
> most prevalent.I
>
> So I asked why.  I received at least a handful of reasons from each
> respondent, no answer consistently offered, none all that obviously
> compelling.  My initial reaction was "It's just the buzz", that is - a
> fad.  Further research revealed a thriving and mature community around
> Ruby, so that initial reaction was probably too dismissive.  So let me
> ask the question more specifically and of a broader audience with
> greater specific knowledge.
>
> Is Ruby a good programming language for general purpose usage?  That is,
> is it worth the time and effort to become proficient?
>
> The problem is that ANY programming language will probably require tons
> of study and years of practice before a developer achieves proficiency.
> Is Ruby worth the investment for someone seeking a new programming
> language?
>
> I don't want to skew responses by specifying a particular application or
> usage.  However, please DO respond with qualified answers if you feel
> that is appropriate.  Again, I don't want to sway responses by
> specifying a background for the learner.  Might be a relatively new
> student of programming, might be an old-timer with decades of
> development experience.  Let's just assume reasonable intelligence,
> interest and inclination to learn a new programming language.  Given
> that,
>
> Is Ruby a good choice as a general usage programming language?  Why (or
> why not)?
>