From: "jbritt@..." <jbritt@...>
Date: 2004-02-02T04:19:03+09:00
Subject: Re: Python 25 times as popular as Ruby !?

Emmanuel Touzery wrote:

> On Sunday 01 of February 2004 08:53, Dan Doel wrote:
> 
>>But why should it matter if Ruby is more known than Python or Java or C
>>or whatever?
> 
> 
> because then i can do ruby at my daily work instead of suffering in C# :O)
> for now ruby is only acceptable for internal tools, clients want 
> buzzword-compliant tools. python might be in this class soon, and i'd like 
> ruby to get there too.. (and i trust matz not to cripple the language to get 
> there)


I second that.  I get to do some Ruby coding at my current contract gig, 
but it's largely under the radar.  Too many places prefer to stick with 
so-called "tried and true" languages and vendors; getting Ruby in the 
door is something of a stealth act.

Perhaps in the grand scheme of things concerns over popularity seem 
trivial, but there really are some day-to-day practical matters as well.

Gaining mind-share may not be so hard, provided the Ruby community puts 
enough effort into, among other things, comprehensive documentation, and 
an easy package management tool.

With the new Ri/Rdoc, RubyGems, and ruby-doc.org, I'm optimistic, but 
there's still work to be done.

James