From: glenn_m_smith@... (Glenn)
Date: 2004-05-04T17:24:03+09:00
Subject: Re: What do you use Ruby for?

My primary work involves data-cleaning/derivation (13 million records
of 400 fields to be cleaned and extra fields derived from the supplied
data). For this we use Oracle 9i, and I'm happy using PL/SQL for this,
and in this I work in a team of two, the other guy a long-term PL/SQL
guru/fan.

My other major work is in developing GUI front-ends to a database
(again, usually Oracle).  As with most companies we primarily use
Windows, and I've not found a better development environment for this
(well, for me anyway) than Visual Basic.  It has it's downsides but
mostly it's fine, and I've been using it for years.

If anything I guess it's the GUI development environment I'll need
another language for (eventually).  VB6 is obviously dying now, VB.NET
or C# are the obvious direction, but I'm not totally happy with .NET. 
They are totally different to VB so either way I've got to learn a new
language, and Microsoft don't seem to be agreed on the direction of
their underlying libraries.

So I thought I might take the opportunity to learn a more
cross-platform language.

Ruby might not fit the bill totally, yet, but the core language itself
seems very well designed and certainly has a lot of community support.
 I imagine that over time it's power will grow - I guess by power it's
not the language so much that seems to be lacking, more the VB-like
IDE with screen designer and hooks into the language that I'd miss
(unless somebody knows something I don't).

I'm interested in Jamey's comment that he uses Ruby with FXRuby,
instead of Delphi.  I'll take a look at FXRuby, but wonder why you
prefer to (or so it appears) hand code a GUI instead of draw it.  That
would seem a backward step for me?  (no offense meant, I'm interested)

By the way, this seems a very nice forum with some friendly people!

All the best