... old topic, new discussion

[Jeff Wood]

So,=20

I've been doing quite a bit of Ruby stuff under Windows lately and I
would really like to bring light back to a thread that happend way
back in April of 2001...

Do we believe that there is a need for an ActiveState Ruby
distribution. They've done wonderful things with their support of
Win32 programming for Perl & Python... the .net stuff, etc.

I, obviously, would love to see that same attention paid to our
language of choice.

I see lots of notes here and there that state "File I/O is ugly, or
things are just ugly because they tried to emulate the *nix apis for
things that could be done much faster and cleaner with Win32 native
apis...

Anyways, I just wanted to throw the question out, I'd really like to
see everyone's feedback. Windows is still the dominant platform,
having more support in more places could provide a real kick to
helping mass-market acceptance.

There's my $0.02 ... where's yours?

j.

--=20
"So long, and thanks for all the fish"

Jeff Wood

 

[Jeff Wood]

And by dominant platform, I mean there are more kids in school, and
more PC users that are using it ... ( just wanted to *try* to abate
some of the flames that are undoubtedly headed my way )

Imagine getting Activestate style active scripting for Ruby ... let
people use Ruby as their scripting language for windows, for word,
etc.

Get Ruby into .NET and let it compete with C# head-on ...=20

Those kinds of things.

So,
=20
I've been doing quite a bit of Ruby stuff under Windows lately and I
would really like to bring light back to a thread that happend way
back in April of 2001...
=20
Do we believe that there is a need for an ActiveState Ruby
distribution. They've done wonderful things with their support of
Win32 programming for Perl & Python... the .net stuff, etc.
=20
I, obviously, would love to see that same attention paid to our
language of choice.
=20
I see lots of notes here and there that state "File I/O is ugly, or
things are just ugly because they tried to emulate the *nix apis for
things that could be done much faster and cleaner with Win32 native
apis...
=20
Anyways, I just wanted to throw the question out, I'd really like to
see everyone's feedback. Windows is still the dominant platform,
having more support in more places could provide a real kick to
helping mass-market acceptance.
=20
There's my $0.02 ... where's yours?
=20
j.
=20
--
"So long, and thanks for all the fish"
=20
Jeff Wood
=20
=20

--=20
"So long, and thanks for all the fish"

Jeff Wood

 

[Devin Mullins]

I'd be interested in what platforms Ruby users use... obviously,
Windows has not a that huge share, but I'd like to know how much
it really is...

Well, the population is skewed because the the language has a bias
towards 'nix (and hence encourages use of that platform, or discourages
use of Ruby on Windows), but:

http://web.archive.org/web/20030920...gmaticprogrammer.com/ruby/survey_results.html
http://rubyurl.com/6jRQx

Devin
And yes, the One-Click Installer helps a lot. I'm using Windows right
now (but plan on buying a powerbook Real Soon Now).

 

[Jeff Wood]

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Well, the population is skewed because the the language has a bias
towards 'nix (and hence encourages use of that platform, or
discourages use of Ruby on Windows), but:

http://web.archive.org/web/20030920...gmaticprogrammer.com/ruby/survey_results.html

http://rubyurl.com/6jRQx

Devin
And yes, the One-Click Installer helps a lot. I'm using Windows right
now (but plan on buying a powerbook Real Soon Now).

You know, I think it would be good if they did another version of the
survey ... to see where things are now ... I mean, there weren't that
many responses before ... and a good portion of them were windows people.

It would be interesting to see what's changed and what's stayed the same...

Mr. Thomas, any input?

j.


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[TLOlczyk]

Do we believe that there is a need for an ActiveState Ruby
distribution. They've done wonderful things with their support of
Win32 programming for Perl & Python... the .net stuff, etc.

In terms of Perl, it was allready taking on the world when
ActiveState glommed on to it. ActiveState gained more from that
association than Perl did. The same for TK.

For Python ActiveState did do something, it made the Windows
version usable in one step where you didn't have to muck around a lot
with installation. However if you look at the later history their
participation did more harm than good, and if a few things had gone
the wrong way Python would be dieing now.

I don't think people want to put Ruby in their hands. It's too risky.




The reply-to email address is (e-mail address removed).
This is an address I ignore.
To reply via email, remove 2002 and change yahoo to
interaccess,

**
Thaddeus L. Olczyk, PhD

There is a difference between
*thinking* you know something,
and *knowing* you know something.

 

[Jeff Wood]

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In terms of Perl, it was allready taking on the world when
ActiveState glommed on to it. ActiveState gained more from that
association than Perl did. The same for TK.

For Python ActiveState did do something, it made the Windows
version usable in one step where you didn't have to muck around a lot
with installation. However if you look at the later history their
participation did more harm than good, and if a few things had gone
the wrong way Python would be dieing now.

I don't think people want to put Ruby in their hands. It's too risky.




The reply-to email address is (e-mail address removed).
This is an address I ignore.
To reply via email, remove 2002 and change yahoo to
interaccess,

**
Thaddeus L. Olczyk, PhD

There is a difference between
*thinking* you know something,
and *knowing* you know something.

Ah, I wondered when one of the "ActiveState almost ruined the world!"
people would respond. I've been an ActiveState user for 7 years now...
All they've ever done was simply make tools so that those of us that
are/were building software to run under windows had a decent toolbox to
do it with. The PDK saved my bacon more times than I like to count.

People just look for a reason to dislike them because they've focused on
the windows platform and Microsoft put some money into them. I wish
people would get over this my-platform-is-better-than-your-platform
bull-squash and realize that mass market acceptance requires good tools
for Windows. Unless some major re-alignment of the stars happens, they
are always going to be a major factor in computers. They helped make
PCs what they are.

Matz isn't letting go of the language to anyone, so, why not accept the
help of a company that's helped build some really good tools for other
languages? I mean, what do you really see as an "evil" dis-service you
see ActiveState performing?

And no, I don't work for Microsoft. I work for a company who's "product"
software all runs on Linux. I'm just realistic about things.

j.


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[tony summerfelt]

Jeff Wood wrote on 8/16/2005 8:47 AM:

Ah, I wondered when one of the "ActiveState almost ruined the world!"
people would respond. I've been an ActiveState user for 7 years now...

i started with the 'gsar' version of perl. and used activestate when
they were still 'hip communications'.

if you were on a machine with no perl OR compiler, the activestate
distrobution made sense.

one thing activestate will probably do for the ruby world is attract
more attention from ruby modue developers.

if they released a 'batteries included' version, all the include
modules would work with it.