From: Chad Perrin <code@...>
Date: 2011-05-16T03:57:58+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby Future Or?

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On Sun, May 15, 2011 at 08:31:39PM +0900, Robert Johns wrote:
> I was thinking today and I was wondering if ruby has a future when
> python is being to widely accepted. Outside of rails, because I have no
> want to code in rails.

I haven't used Rails in five years.  I use Ruby daily.

Ruby is actually used heavily in some software management tools on
FreeBSD.  It is used for a lot of network applications (i.e., an IRC
dicebot called "drollbot" that I wrote, as well as craptons of other
things other people write).  It's great for nontrivial sysadmin
utilities.  It's an excellent introductory language for people knew to
(object oriented) programming.  It's heavily used for test automation.
It serves well for "enterprise integration" tasks.  It offers a fast and
easy way to construct GUI applications without selling your soul to
Visual Basic.  Unlike the majority of software out there (like MS
Windows, Firefox, and Photoshop), Ruby tends to get *faster* with new
versions.  It is popular enough to have close to a dozen different
implementations.  Thanks to one of those -- JRuby -- it runs almost
anywhere Java runs, and thanks to another -- IronRuby -- it is a viable
choice for certain types of programming with the .NET framework.  Ruby is
being used to develop implementations of other languages, including its
use in developing a Ruby implementation called Rubinius.  It offers
abstraction facilities that Python lacks (see functional programming
constructs and metaprogramming for examples).

Perhaps most importantly, it's *fun*.

The fact that Python is more popular in some contexts than Ruby does not
mean that Ruby is doomed.  That's short-sighted, unenlightened thinking.

--=20
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]

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