From: Carl Parrish <cparrish@...>
Date: 2002-03-23T15:30:49+09:00
Subject: RE: Windows version of Ruby (proposals)

On Fri, 2002-03-22 at 15:36, Morris, Chris wrote:

> 
> So, Carl, do you believe that Ruby does not need to be really good on
> Windows? You say you're not against it:

Sorry that I wasn't clear here. I'm not against Ruby being good on
Windows. Like I said I'm pretty lazy and if someone ever did want to run
my apps on Windows (not counting web interfaces). Then I wouldn't want e
to start over from scratch. My point was lets not make the assumtion
that most developers develop from Windows. Because I feel that's false.
The older I get (and I'm not very yet) the more I feel that most
programs don't interact with "users" (in the desktop sense) but with
other programs, developers, and system admins. And that group for the
most part are not using Windows. I understand that developers and system
admins are a small group of computer users. But I think they are the
ones Ruby has to be targeted for. If you choose or have to work in
Windows I think you should get the best version of Ruby that you can.
However I think that since Ruby is a developers tools it will always be
more fitting for the best developers platform. Actual I don't have to
argue this, because of its open source nature Ruby will either prove me
wrong or right. If more developers put tools in to help them in their
Windows development I'll be proven wrong. But I think that history
points to me being right. Perl, Python, and Ruby while all able to run
on Windows are all generally thought of as *nix tools. Since (if as I
believe) most developers are working on nonWindows OSes there will
always be more needs for *nix (or whatever OS comes out to replace *nix)
and they will build tools for those needs. Making it cross platform then
is an after thought. Or (and I feel rightly so) when someone on Windows
says. "Hey I need that" and either campains to have it ported or does it
him / herself.

Carl Parrish