Re: Forward: Drafting a "The Year in Scripting Languages"

The following is my contribution to this project.  I think I have 
exhausted my capacity to add additional content without doing further 
research.  I will happily continue to help however I can and can also 
contribute to editing and to adding links where needed.  Feel free to 
edit, rearrange, use, not use, etc.

Ruby.year(2002)

A report by the Ruby community

Introduction

	Ruby continued to delight its practitioners and, perhaps, tempt those 
who work in other languages, throughout 2002.  Measured by traffic on 
the ruby-talk mailing list, more and more people from around the world 
are discovering Ruby and the joys it brings to programming.  And 
visions of the future of Ruby (more libraries, faster execution, more 
intuitive interfaces to enhanced functionality) have intoxicated 
Rubyists (Rubiots?  Rubyphiles?  Ruby Miners?) everywhere.  The 
community itself is such a pleasure to be a part of.  In some ways, the 
only hard times in the community seem to come from loving Ruby too 
much.  [Need to add links.]

1.  The release of 1.6.8.

     [I don't know what's important to point out here.]  [Need to add 
links.]

2.  The release of 1.8 preview.

     [I definitely don't know what to say here.]  [Need to add links.]

3.  Unit Testing with Test:Unit

     The Test:Unit library (http://) is now included in the standard 
Ruby distribution.  Test:Unit is an object oriented framework for 
building unit tests.  It sports an intuitive interface and rock-solid 
performance.  Now, outside-in, method interface oriented and true 
encapsulation design practices are available even to the beginning 
programmer.  You will still have to write the tests and write the code 
that passes the tests on your own though.  Those currently outside the 
Ruby community also get to skip the extensive, but polite, discussions 
of setup and teardown vs. set_up and tear_down (it's the former, and 
the discussions are in the mailing list archives, for those with too 
much time on their hands).  [Need to add links.]

4.  XML with REXML

     [I haven't yet used REXML (although I will start fairly soon).]  
[Need to add links.]

5.  Documentation

     Documentation and documentation tools have continued to develop for 
Ruby libraries and applications.  However, more and more work is needed 
to keep up with the pace and volume of development efforts.  In 
particular, more work is needed on English (and other languages) 
documentation for libraries and applications currently documented only 
in Japanese and/or English.  [This needs to be expanded, but I don't 
really know enough about what's been done on this.]  [Need to add 
links.]

6.  Ruby on Mac OS X.

     Beginning with Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar), Ruby is now standard on the 
Mac (along with Perl and Python).  __________ has been working on 
RubyCocoa, now at version ___, which makes the Cocoa framework 
available to Ruby.  [RubyCocoa is still on my to-do list, so I lack the 
knowledge to adequately address it.]  [Need to add links.]

7.  Compiled Ruby and Virtual Machines.

     Matz, the inventor of Ruby, and his unnamed associates (or is it 
co-conspirators?) are working on speeding up the Ruby interpreter 
(while keeping dynamic typing).  The choice of virtual machine for this 
purpose is perhaps the most closely guarded secret on the planet and a 
source of almost unbearable suspense for the Ruby community.  Is it 
Parrot?  Forth?  Scheme-48?  Only time, and matz, will tell.  [Need to 
add links.]

8.  Ruby Books

     2002 saw the publication the English translation of Ruby in a 
Nutshell (by matz), The Ruby Way (by Hal Fulton) and Teach Yourself 
Ruby in 21 Days (by Mark Slagell).  Programming Ruby (by Andy Hunt and 
Dave Thomas), known in the Ruby community as the pickaxe book, 
continued to be extremely popular (at least as to the free online 
version) and enormously useful.  All who can find and afford a hard 
copy should buy the book, because it is best used open and beside your 
computer (and because sales will encourage more publishers to publish 
more Ruby books).

     *	 Ruby in Nutshell is by matz, the inventor of Ruby.  [I confess, 
with great embarrassment, that I haven't read this book.]

     *	 Teach Yourself Ruby in 21 Days is an excellent book for the 
beginning programmer that also covers more advanced topics such as 
recursion, matrices, binary decision trees and class interfaces.  Those 
who are turned off by the title of the book should look deeper (after 
all, you can't judge a book by its cover or its title).  If it helps, 
one might think of it by another title they find more appealing (maybe 
"The Structure and Interpretation of Ruby Programs").

     *	 The Ruby Way is an outstanding book that covers the Ruby 
approach to solving a broad range of programming problems.  Many 
advanced topics are thoroughly covered and the discussions of more 
basic concepts often provide new insights into what is really going on 
in Ruby and in programming generally.  It is an intermediate level book 
and is a must-have for Ruby programmers.

[Any others?  Also any interesting books in non-English?]  [Need to add 
links.]

9.  Growing interest in Fox and FxRuby as a desirable Ruby GUI.

     [I don't know enough about this.  Sidenote: I really want to figure 
out how to get FxRuby working on Mac OS X and will redouble my meager 
efforts on this.]  [Need to add links.]

10.  Ruby and Web Application Development [This section is from Phil 
Tomson with some minor edits by me.]

      Web application development with Ruby is beginning to come into 
its own. Many quality tools are now available and have reached 
milestone stability releases.

      *	 eRuby provides for embedding Ruby script directly into HTML 
documents, much like PHP, but grants the developer all the power of 
Ruby's object oriented design.

      *	 Amrita (http://), an alternative to eRuby, is an HTML/XHTML tag 
attribute-based markup syntax, making for excellent separation of 
content and logic.

      *	 For accelerated execution, mod_ruby (http://www.modruby.net/), 
the Ruby Apache module, embeds the ruby interpreter directly into 
Apache, much like mod_perl and mod_php, and is quite stable, now at 
version 1.0.2.

      *	 There are also complete frameworks like CGIKit and ILE 
(http://virtualschool.edu/ile/) to speed development.

      Web development with Ruby is very powerful solution and gives web 
programmers powerful object oriented tools that can be used with 
traditional Perl and PHP scripting or in place of these other tools 
where appropriate. Expect to see many new Ruby-based applications in 
the future!  [Need to add links.]

[Ruby on Windows needs to be addressed.  I don't know anything about 
this topic]

[The Carrera and Pine tutorials might also be mentioned and linked to 
-- perhaps in an online resources guide.]

[Also, a section on Perl to Ruby, etc. could also be helpful.]

[Also, a section on using Ruby in an environment along side other 
scripting language might be helpful.]

[A coming in 2003 section -- FreeRIDE 1.0? others?]The following is my contribution to this project.  I think I have
exhausted my capacity to add additional content without doing further
research.  I will happily continue to help however I can and can also
contribute to editing and to adding links where needed.  Feel free to
edit, rearrange, use, not use, etc.


Ruby.year(2002)


A report by the Ruby community


Introduction


	Ruby continued to delight its practitioners and, perhaps, tempt those
who work in other languages, throughout 2002.  Measured by traffic on
the ruby-talk mailing list, more and more people from around the world
are discovering Ruby and the joys it brings to programming.  And
visions of the future of Ruby (more libraries, faster execution, more
intuitive interfaces to enhanced functionality) have intoxicated
Rubyists (Rubiots?  Rubyphiles?  Ruby Miners?) everywhere.  The
community itself is such a pleasure to be a part of.  In some ways,
the only hard times in the community seem to come from loving Ruby too
much.  <bold>[Need to add links.]</bold>


1.  The release of 1.6.8.


    <bold>[I don't know what's important to point out here.]  [Need to
add links.]</bold>


2.  The release of 1.8 preview.


    <bold>[I definitely don't know what to say here.]  [Need to add
links.]</bold>


3.  Unit Testing with Test:Unit


    The Test:Unit library (http://) is now included in the standard
Ruby distribution.  Test:Unit is an object oriented framework for
building unit tests.  It sports an intuitive interface and rock-solid
performance.  Now, outside-in, method interface oriented and true
encapsulation design practices are available even to the beginning
programmer.  You will still have to write the tests and write the code
that passes the tests on your own though.  Those currently outside the
Ruby community also get to skip the extensive, but polite, discussions
of setup and teardown vs. set_up and tear_down (it's the former, and
the discussions are in the mailing list archives, for those with too
much time on their hands). <bold> [Need to add links.]</bold>


4.  XML with REXML


   <bold> [I haven't yet used REXML (although I will start fairly
soon).]  [Need to add links.]</bold>


5.  Documentation


    Documentation and documentation tools have continued to develop
for Ruby libraries and applications.  However, more and more work is
needed to keep up with the pace and volume of development efforts.  In
particular, more work is needed on English (and other languages)
documentation for libraries and applications currently documented only
in Japanese and/or English. <bold> [This needs to be expanded, but I
don't really know enough about what's been done on this.]  [Need to
add links.]</bold>


6.  Ruby on Mac OS X.


    Beginning with Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar), Ruby is now standard on the
Mac (along with Perl and Python).  __________ has been working on
RubyCocoa, now at version ___, which makes the Cocoa framework
available to Ruby.  <bold>[RubyCocoa is still on my to-do list, so I
lack the knowledge to adequately address it.]  [Need to add links.]</bold>


7.  Compiled Ruby and Virtual Machines.


    Matz, the inventor of Ruby, and his unnamed associates (or is it
co-conspirators?) are working on speeding up the Ruby interpreter
(while keeping dynamic typing).  The choice of virtual machine for
this purpose is perhaps the most closely guarded secret on the planet
and a source of almost unbearable suspense for the Ruby community.  Is
it Parrot?  Forth?  Scheme-48?  Only time, and matz, will tell. 
<bold>[Need to add links.]</bold>


8.  Ruby Books


    2002 saw the publication the English translation of Ruby in a
Nutshell (by matz), The Ruby Way (by Hal Fulton) and Teach Yourself
Ruby in 21 Days (by Mark Slagell).  Programming Ruby (by Andy Hunt and
Dave Thomas), known in the Ruby community as the pickaxe book,
continued to be extremely popular (at least as to the free online
version) and enormously useful.  All who can find and afford a hard
copy should buy the book, because it is best used open and beside your
computer (and because sales will encourage more publishers to publish
more Ruby books).


    *	 Ruby in Nutshell is by matz, the inventor of Ruby.  <bold>[I
confess, with great embarrassment, that I haven't read this book.]</bold>


    *	 Teach Yourself Ruby in 21 Days is an excellent book for the
beginning programmer that also covers more advanced topics such as
recursion, matrices, binary decision trees and class interfaces. 
Those who are turned off by the title of the book should look deeper
(after all, you can't judge a book by its cover or its title).  If it
helps, one might think of it by another title they find more appealing
(maybe "The Structure and Interpretation of Ruby Programs").


    *	 The Ruby Way is an outstanding book that covers the Ruby
approach to solving a broad range of programming problems.  Many
advanced topics are thoroughly covered and the discussions of more
basic concepts often provide new insights into what is really going on
in Ruby and in programming generally.  It is an intermediate level
book and is a must-have for Ruby programmers.


<bold>[Any others?  Also any interesting books in non-English?]  [Need
to add links.]</bold>


9.  Growing interest in Fox and FxRuby as a desirable Ruby GUI.


    <bold>[I don't know enough about this.  Sidenote: I really want to
figure out how to get FxRuby working on Mac OS X and will redouble my
meager efforts on this.]  [Need to add links.]</bold>


10.  Ruby and Web Application Development <bold>[This section is from
Phil Tomson with some minor edits by me.]</bold>


     Web application development with Ruby is beginning to come into
its own. Many quality tools are now available and have reached
milestone stability releases.


     *	 eRuby provides for embedding Ruby script directly into HTML
documents, much like PHP, but grants the developer all the power of
Ruby's object oriented design.


     *	 Amrita (http://), an alternative to eRuby, is an HTML/XHTML
tag attribute-based markup syntax, making for excellent separation of
content and logic.


     *	 For accelerated execution, mod_ruby (http://www.modruby.net/),
the Ruby Apache module, embeds the ruby interpreter directly into
Apache, much like mod_perl and mod_php, and is quite stable, now at
version 1.0.2.


     *	 There are also complete frameworks like CGIKit and ILE
(http://virtualschool.edu/ile/) to speed development.


     Web development with Ruby is very powerful solution and gives web
programmers powerful object oriented tools that can be used with
traditional Perl and PHP scripting or in place of these other tools
where appropriate. Expect to see many new Ruby-based applications in
the future! <bold> [Need to add links.]</bold>


<bold>[Ruby on Windows needs to be addressed.  I don't know anything
about this topic]


[The Carrera and Pine tutorials might also be mentioned and linked to
-- perhaps in an online resources guide.]


[Also, a section on Perl to Ruby, etc. could also be helpful.]


[Also, a section on using Ruby in an environment along side other
scripting language might be helpful.]


[A coming in 2003 section -- FreeRIDE 1.0? others?]</bold>