From: "W. Kent Starr" <elderburn@...>
Date: 2001-01-15T15:12:09+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:9327] Re: Licensing issues

On Sun, 14 Jan 2001, Ben Tilly wrote:

> Now my opinion is that 3 of the top factors for why
> Ruby has a brighter future than the already existing
> and more mature sources of the ideas are:
> 
> 1. Ruby plays well with others.  It does not expect
>     that your entire world is Ruby, it expects to
>     co-exist and interact heavily with other tools
>     coming from other philosophies.

Making it a perfect "glue". There is a lot of good previously existing code out
there that solves to some degree a lot of problems.  Why port it/rewrite it if
you can asimiilate it in a Ruby as The Borg fashion/

 > 2. Ruby has a syntax that looks like something
>     people are familiar with already.  That avoids
>     an initial shock of unfamiliarity.

Again, making it easy to absorb code and logic from other sources and avoid
spinning your wheels try to reinvent the wheel.

Also, what I did not include in my post re Ari's project is that, on the
serious side, Ruby code is _very_ readable so that external documentation,
while nice to have, perhaps, is certainly not a requirement.
  
> 3. Last but not least, Matz is giving Ruby away
>     instead of trying to make money from it.  If he
>     tried to charge money for Ruby I don't think
>     that he would have nearly the impact which he
>     is about to.
> 
> The third was my reason for bringing this up.  Create
> barriers to entry and you get fewer people trying
> your stuff out.  Charging up fron is a non-trivial
> barrier to entry.

BULLSEYE!!! Give the man a Cupie doll!  

Add to that the fact that Ruby is both slim and powerful and what you have is
an all-around winning combination.  At least, in my humble opinion.

Regards,

Kent Starr
elderburn@mindspring.com
 
> Cheers,
> Ben
> _________________________________________________________________
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