From: Chad Fowler <chadfowler@...>
Date: 2003-02-26T01:59:26+09:00
Subject: Re: [ANN] Happy Birthday, Ruby, and an announcement....


----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Campbell" <michael_s_campbell@yahoo.com>
To: "ruby-talk ML" <ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2003 9:59 PM
Subject: Re: [ANN] Happy Birthday, Ruby, and an announcement....


> > > I think the question for the comunity here is, "Do we want to
> > > play catchup
> > > with Perl, or do we want to find the space where Ruby can
> > > *really*
> > > differentiate itself and focus on that?"  I'm voting for the
> > > latter.  It's
> > > easy to copy--it's more challenging to innovate.
>
>
> It's also pretty easy to innovate yourself right out of the public
> eye.  Ruby should be accessable; "paradigm shifting" is ok for
> research and such, but you want people to USE it, and familiararity
> is what keeps people from simply looking then moving on.
>

Agreed, as long as you aren't saying that innovation and familiarity are
*necessarily* at odds with each other.

Ruby itself is an innovative combination of a number of familiar idioms,
creating--to use a cliche--a whole that is greater than its parts.

Chad