[ruby-talk:9984] Re: Ruby refs on Slashdot

On Sun, 28 Jan 2001, David Alan Black wrote:

> On Sun, 28 Jan 2001, Conrad Schneiker wrote:
> 
> > FYI. See the original for much better formatting and to see the links.
> > 
> > Conrad
> > 
> > http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/01/23/1315220&mode=thread
> 
> I have to admit that I haven't kept up with the culture of slashdot,
> so I'm not in a good position to know how worthwhile the exposure is
> in exchange for yet another barrage of not very knowledgeable (as
> regards Ruby) Perl-conformity tests.

I try to read the headlines occassionally, but it seems I'm missing too
much. Anyway, a seach there brought up this one

  http://slashdot.org/askslashdot/00/05/07/1158237.shtml

which might have been noted a year ago at -talk.

> It still bugs me.  Someone reading this:
> 
>   They made a nice attempt to duplicate perl's interpolating strings
>   through the use of "xxxx #{var_name} xxxxx"
> 
> is unlikely to realize that in fact....

That's true. But actually I don't regard this as a major failure of
us, the community or peaceful Ruby advocates. I guess the author of
above statement will have nice awakening when he tries Ruby next time.

And I guess he will have his awakening, as he seemed to be one
searching for better way to do things. Anyway, he had couple of other, good,
remarks, which really touch the essence of Ruby too.

> Anyway, I'd be interested in what the more slashdot-cognizant among us
> thing about the help/hurt potential in material like this.

Definitely helps! Any nice amount of non-zealot material on medias
which use the bandwidth for bringing some part of the message home
instead of pretty pictures and non-meaninful but beautiful set of
words is good for us!

There were positive comments like "I haven't used Ruby for anything
but so far I haven't heard much negative about it" says basically:

 1) I'm not a zealot, nor knowledgeable, so please use your own
    brains
 2) people don't widely bash this thing, so please go on and
    explore the possibilities by yourself

If Ruby attracts mostly people who pass this "filter", I'm definitely
happy and have great expectations for the future.

> And, to
> the extent that the ratio is unfavorable, whether there's any way not
> only to respond point-by-point, but to somehow make it less likely
> that the next person who tries Ruby, and the next, and the
> next.... will reinvent (and get snagged on) comparisons like this.

Slashdot-like discussions shine for a moment, and are produced by many
kinds of people -- even by the people characterized as karma whores.

So in order to sort things out, and explain one has to be there when
things happen. I guess there's no point building counter arguments
afterwards.

> Or is it just a matter of the passage of time and an additive effect?

I'd give up hope if it's only additive effect. But I've seen many
great things to build up the well-known "brand" by multiplicative or
exponential effect.

It's not that all it takes is a friendly "look, here's how I did it
already", but that it is a great start.

   - Aleksi