From: Maik Schmidt <contact@...>
Date: 2003-07-30T11:23:40+09:00
Subject: Re: Fishing for ideas: Ruby-talk for Java coders

> I am only fishing for ideas. What would you focus on? We have 60 minutes 
> of talking time.

In my opinion, you should try to focus on language features (blocks, 
iterators, dynamicity etc.), because Java will definitely loose this 
part of the battle against Ruby. Show how easy using Arrays and Hashes 
is compared to Java's Collection mess.

But beware: This focus will lead to Java's greatest strength very fast, 
i.e. "Java the platform" and not "Java the language". Every clever Java 
coder will talk like this: "So, I see that it is very easy to implement 
feature XYZ in Ruby, because it is a very nice language. But: Why should 
I implement it anyway? I can find this in java.x.y.z, if I need it. And 
if not, I can it in org.apache.xyz.".

We have to admit, that this is right in some cases, but you should 
emphasize, that even Java does not provide everything a programmer needs 
and that Java is currently growing too fast and too big. I am sure that 
the average Java coder today will implement feature XYZ in Java despite 
the fact that it's already there and - even worse - he is going to do it 
using "Java the language". Very painful! And we should not forget, that 
many APIs provided by Java - even core APIs like Collections etc. - are 
just a pile of #$%& that nobody really wants to work with.

> I guess we /must/ mention interoperability with Java.
Hmm .... the [pj]ython guys are lucky. Ruby still lacks a clean bridge 
to the Java world. We need interoperability with Java, .NET and 
_especially_ (hello, matz ;-)) with parrot as soon as possible IMHO. 
This way we are able to convince people of Ruby's strengths by simply 
providing compiled code, that we developed several times faster than 
they were ever able to using their favourite programming language. But 
that's another thread ...

Cheers,

   <maik/>