From: ptkwt@...1.aracnet.com (Phil Tomson)
Date: 2003-05-21T08:35:09+09:00
Subject: Re: Why is PHP so popular?  What can we learn from the PHP camp?

In article <34c75ec8.0305201430.b5facc1@posting.google.com>,
Jason Watkins <jason_watkins@pobox.com> wrote:
>PHP got where it is mostly by being old, and not being perl. While we
>could learn from them, ruby's current problem is not to duplicate what
>PHP did, but instead to figure out what it needs to do now in order to
>achieve the same kind of critical mass.
>
>I've done a fair amount of PHP, ASP and JavaServlet programming. I've
>done enough PHP to know I wish to do no more :P. So, now that I've got
>some web projects again, I intend to use ruby. So, as a relative
>beginner, my direct impressions are:
>
>1.) Single source for all documentation info, with user added
>comments, ala php's manual. Very important that the cannocal way of
>doing something is illustrated somewhere in this document, much like
>php.



>2.) A single "does all you need for ruby web programming" package.
>Preferibly this would be what mod_ruby turns into, so that if you have
>mod_ruby, you know you have what you need, at the most just a
>--configure-with-blahblahblah away
>3.) CPAN, nuff said
>4.) A critical mass of tutorials on the web that assume zero prior
>knowledge.
>5.) Speed bragging rights
>
>All these are important, but for attracting new users, #4 is
>absolutely killer. The huge volume of PHP tutorials is what led me to
>it originally. We need to get some folks from onlamp and elsewhere to
>discover "hey, ruby is cool". But they likely won't until the other
>things are wrapped up.
>


I'm wondering if perhaps we already have lots of documentation out there, 
but the problem is that it's scattered all over the web?  Perhaps we need 
to link the best tutorials at http://www.ruby-lang.org?


>And #5 is certainly a falacy... however, even if they don't really
>need performance, users often *think* they do, and so bragging rights
>would do an amazing amount to bring people over to ruby. Stupid but
<snip>

And it really is easy to write C extensions which help out in the speed 
department when you really need it.

>Ruby is so great that if people move towards addressing some of these
>things, it's sure to gain users. I haven't used ruby in 2 years, and
>the other day it literally took me 2 minutes of browsing "the book" to
>remeber everything I needed to write prettymuch anything I should
>want. That's awsome.
>
>In general, if Ruby could combine the power of Java Servlets with the
>initial learning ease of PHP, with performance joe user would respect,
>then it would be the killer web language.
>
>Ohh, and thanks for the tip; always looking for good mexican food in
>ptown :).

Are you in Portland?  Have you made it to any of our Ruby meetings?

Phil