From: Sascha Ebach <se@...>
Date: 2004-05-01T00:16:37+09:00
Subject: Re: Opportunities and pitfalls; was "Introducing myself - Sascha Ebach"

Hello Mike,

there is not a single thing that you say I would disagree on. IMHO you 
describe the current situation quite good. Ruby is in a lot of regards 
still in an early stage. Things are going to get better, but it'll take 
time. There is no gigantic force (like the Sun Imperium) behind Ruby, 
only a lot of enthusiasts. It's the same with a lot of open source 
projects. Look at Linux!

The thing is, and there are probably a gazillion ppl out there more 
qualified to comment than I am, if you want to work with one of these 
enthusiasts products, there is a price for it. Your precious time. Like 
you say, for a lot of products you are required to get under the hood to 
just use it. But, you can not really expect much more from the ppl who 
create all this in their free time.

I think the situation is not all that bad. We will still see lots and 
lots of years come to pass before projects like Ruby, GUIs in the Linux 
/ Unix world, etc. will significantly mature to be really measured with 
commercial products. They have already done so in the past. A great 
deal. For someone working with software for so long you can probably 
realize that it takes a very long time before things get really stable 
and usable. Not considering the fact that a lot of open source 
developers work on their projects in their free time and not full time 
or even get paid.

In the meantime it would be a good idea to infect other early adopters 
and enthusiast with trying out Ruby ;) simply because its syntax and a 
lot of its design ideas are so beautiful. And it is fun to program in Ruby.

Will you be able to do all you want with Ruby really soon? No! For that 
you probably have to come back in 5-10 years (hopefully earlier). But, 
nobody is saying any different (I think). As always, for your production 
code choose the most appropriate language(s) and tools if you feel that 
in your particular space Ruby is not mature enough.

I myself want to use Ruby instead of PHP in the web application space. I 
think for this purpose it is really a great fit at the moment although 
it could probably get better.

Cheers
-- 
Sascha Ebach