Re: ripl - an irb alternative - 0.3.0 released

On Jan 4, 2011, at 06:24 , Robert Klemme wrote:

> On Tue, Jan 4, 2011 at 2:55 PM, ghorner <[e-mail]> =
wrote:
>> ripl, a light modular alternative to irb, has reached 0.3.0. ripl
>> works on most major rubies (1.8.x, 1.9.x, rubinius and jruby), has a
>> growing plugin ecosystem of 15+ plugins and is fully documented and
>> tested. For more on ripl's features and advantages over irb see:
>>=20
>> * http://github.com/cldwalker/ripl
>> * http://rbjl.net/44-ripl-why-should-you-use-an-irb-alternative
>=20
> This looks interesting, although I would only use it if I need a shell
> framework.  You do not mention a few downsides of ripl:
>=20
> - it is not automatically there as IRB is because it's part of a
> standard Ruby installation (or present in the package system)

So... you only advocate using 100% ruby-core + stdlib. Right.

> - users need to learn it

And they didn't need to learn irb. That's a ridiculous point to try to =
make. You have to learn EVERY tool and EVERY library you use.

> Also, I don't find the argument of 5,000 vs. 270 loc very appealing:
> every software acquires some "weight" as it grows older.  Even if
> ripl's core does not gain that much - the gain then simply will be in
> the plugins.  Over time the loc gap will likely shrink so this is at
> best a temporary argument. :-)

Well, that's entirely inane. You've obviously never looked at the guts =
of irb.

IRB _started_ at 5k (actually ~7k) and has been monotonically increasing =
every since:

3063 % find ruby_1_6/lib/irb* -type f | xargs wc -l | tail -1
    7779 total
3064 % find ruby_1_8_6/lib/irb* -type f | xargs wc -l | tail -1
   11136 total
3065 % find ruby_1_8_7/lib/irb* -type f | xargs wc -l | tail -1
   12519 total
3066 % find ruby_1_9_2/lib/irb* -type f | xargs wc -l | tail -1
   16052 total

It is to the point where it is downright _painful_ to try to maintain, =
much less enhance.

If ripl starts at 270 lines, it isn't even in the same league (in a good =
way) as irb. That means that it'll be orders of magnitude easier to =
understand (more than really; the complexity in a system like this is =
probably geometric, if not exponential).

> Side note: funnily enough I have become more conservative in the
> course of time; maybe it's because I see the cost of change clearer
> nowadays.  At least I rather invest energy in new things that are
> needed than in creating replacements for things that work.  Probably
> I'm approaching grumpy old man state... :-)

apparently. grumpy irrational old man at that...=