From: Bil Kleb <Bil.Kleb@...>
Date: 2003-07-23T06:04:06+09:00
Subject: Re: NASA using Ruby?

Harry Ohlsen wrote:
> I noticed a reference in the intro blurb for Dave Thomas's talk at OSCON 
> to NASA doing numerical simulations using Ruby.
> 
 > I expected that it might be in the Real World Ruby section of
> RubyGarden, but it's not there, either.

I've gone there on a couple of occasions to add an entry buy never
found enough gumption to follow through...

> Does anyone have any further information, or a URL?

Sorry, I've let ruby-lang go unread for a while...

He may have been referring to myself and Bill Wood.

We've been using Ruby since 2000 or so when we did a prototype
Extreme Programming (XP) project.  We developed a couple numerical
simulation prototypes using XP.  The experience is written up in
the May-June 2003 IEEE Software magazine as well as the 2002
http://xpuniverse.com/ conference proceedings.

We have been using Ruby at every opportunity since.

Recently using http://www.googlism.com/ I found an IBM article which
mentions some of our work with Ruby:

  http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-oslab/

and it seems that we managed to not use the word "Ruby" in our abstract
that was included in the NASA's Tech Briefs magazine announcement,

   http://www.nasatech.com/Briefs/Dec02/LAR16494.html

which also describes how one can request a copy of our code and
inflate our local management by objectives metrics --- read DeMarco's
/Slack/ to uncover the inside joke... ;)

Regards,
-- 
Bil Kleb, NASA, Hampton, Virginia, USA