From: ptkwt@...1.aracnet.com (Phil Tomson)
Date: 2002-12-16T13:59:56+09:00
Subject: Re: help -- persuade my boss to adopt ruby

In article <atjfk7$q14$1@grapevine.wam.umd.edu>,
William Djaja Tjokroaminata  <billtj@z.glue.umd.edu> wrote:
>Yukihiro Matsumoto <matz@ruby-lang.org> wrote:
>> Hi,
>
>> In message "Re: help -- persuade my boss to adopt ruby"
>>     on 02/12/12, "Shannon Fang" <xrfang@hotmail.com> writes:
>
>> |>it's the MATZ'S position that Ruby will never be REAL WORLD language.
>> |>it's his own toy and never will appreciate features needed for
>> |>corporate use
>> |Is it really Matz's opinion, and the direction of Ruby?
>
>> I don't think so.  Ruby was his toy at the beginning, but this fact
>> does not mean it remains being a toy forever.  Speaking of "features
>> needed for corporate use", we have to define what they are.  I'm sure
>> that Ruby will never be COBOL.  For THAT kind of "corporate use", my
>> company sponsors opencobol as well as Ruby.
>
>> 							matz.
>
>Hi Matz,
>
>Thanks for the clarification.  It is really comforting to read your
>reply.  Regarding "corporate use", I guess for me it is anything that will
>enable us to really earn living using Ruby.  (Just for fun I scanned the
>jobs section of washingtonpost.com, which is really relevant in my
>geographical area, and I entered the keyword 'ruby'; so far there is no
>company seeking Ruby programmers yet.  When such an opening can be found,
>then for me Ruby is really being used for "corporate use" :) ).

Well, that doesn't mean that no companies in the DC area are using Ruby.  
It just means that nobody's hiring Ruby programmers at this moment in 
time.  About a year and a half ago when I was trying to convince some 
management types that we should use Ruby for a particular project one of 
their objections was that no other significant companies in the area used 
Ruby.  Well, it turns out that there were indeed some folks at Intel 
beginning to use Ruby at that time and I would tend to think that Intel 
counts as a significant company.  Intel wasn't advertising for Ruby 
programmers, so who knew?

My point here is that you really have no idea what is being used where.  
Lot's of technologies (languages, OS's, etc) tend to sneak in the backdoor 
when an engineer decides to use them on a project where there is a good 
fit and (initially) low visibility.  There was a time when you couldn't 
tell your boss you were using Linux or Perl or even Java for that matter.  
Now they're out in the open, but it took time and persistence to get them 
there (and a good dose of marketing in the case of Java :).

[BTW: one way to tell who is using Ruby is to take a look at some of the 
email addresses of people who post here... seems to me that I've seen 
addresses from places like HP, Agilent, Intel, NASA,  NOAA.... Hey that 
might make an interesting thread.]

>
>I always thank you for creating and contributing a wonderful language to
>the programming world.

Indeed.

Phil
-- 
"Or perhaps the truth is less interesting than the facts?" 
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