From: Jason Watkins <jason_watkins@...>
Date: 2003-05-21T14:36:11+09:00
Subject: Re: Why is PHP so popular?  What can we learn from the PHP camp?


> 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?

Hrmm... good point. What I was talking about is more that the accepted open
source web dev portals don't carry ruby tutorials. Getting someone like
onlamp to put up a tutorial and mention on slashdot would put a lot of wind
behind the sail.

> >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.

Someone was wondering why PHP hasn't made inroads as a general scripting
language... I think part of it is, for general computation, it's dog slow.
For copying strings to an apache response it's been very optimized, but
other than that, it's pretty pathetic. I think ruby with the current
interpreter could be very fast compared to PHP for web applications. I think
ruby with a re-engineered vm a la ocaml lite could be ver fast compared to
just about anything. But, I lack the skills to impliment such :(.

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

Nope... knowing portland these are probibly held over a brew somewhere,
which I'm always up for :). Is there an official PRUG homepage or such?
Point me to contact info, I'm definately interested.

jason watkins