Best ways to accelerate Ruby's popularity

[Thursday]

I think Ruby's popularity is growing, but I can't help but wonder what
we can do to accelerate its adoption.

I think we've all seen superior technologies go extinct due to bad
marketing/perception--sadly, perception can be more important than
reality at times.

I think at a minimum, we need these:

1. a more formal release process--this could be as simple as documenting
what level of testing goes into changes to the stable vs dev branches
before they are committed to CVS.

2. a bug tracking system where we can report and view bugs--bugzilla is
overkill, maybe something simpler like trac should be considered.

3. last but not least, online docs on Ruby's primary website (not
3rd-party websites) that is similar to those provided by PostgreSQL and
Python. Maybe we can volunteer to create 'official' ruby docs to be
hosted on ruby's primary website. Preferably using a popular
documentation format that does not use frames like these:

http://python.org/doc/2.4/
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/7.4/interactive/index.html

When ruby's primary website lists ruby 1.4.6 docs for download and says
ruby 1.6 docs are not yet ready (as of Dec 28, 2004), it can give the
wrong impression about Ruby's current pace of activity:
http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/20020107.html

This is particularly sad and misleading because matz, nobu, shugo and
many others are very actively working on improving ruby daily (we can
see this in the daily cvs commits). And it doesn't provide any clues to
newcomers/evaluators about the vibrant ruby community that is
frantically creating new ruby projects to rubyforge.

Anyone else think these few changes can make a big difference in how
ruby is perceived, and consequently chosen over other languages?

 

[Eustaquio Rangel de Oliveira Jr.]

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Hash: SHA1

Hi!

| I think Ruby's popularity is growing, but I can't help but wonder what
| we can do to accelerate its adoption.

I'm reading, learning and writing some stuff about Ruby now. I think this
can make more people know and use it, but I think we don't need to worry so
much about make it so popular.

Of course, will be cool to people use there, but I already saw some
languages that said "hey, let's become a really hype" and

a) their community became fragmented and confuse.
b) the language itself became confuse.

So, I think the way it's going it's perfect, steping on solid ground and
moving very solid. People will know about that, on a way or another.

Best regards,

- ----------------------------
Eustáquio "TaQ" Rangel
(e-mail address removed)
http://beam.to/taq
Usuário GNU/Linux no. 224050
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[Miles Keaton]

online docs on Ruby's primary website (not

3rd-party websites) that is similar to those provided by PostgreSQL and
Python. Maybe we can volunteer to create 'official' ruby docs to be
hosted on ruby's primary website.
When ruby's primary website lists ruby 1.4.6 docs for download and says
ruby 1.6 docs are not yet ready (as of Dec 28, 2004), it can give the
wrong impression about Ruby's current pace of activity:
http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/20020107.html

I agree that as I was getting into Ruby, one of the big turn-offs was
that it always looked like an abandoned project!

Even just two days ago, I went to RubyCentral.org (the people that put
on the Ruby Conference and have the Ruby Codefest Grant program) --
offering to make a financial contribution, and what do I get from
their "contact us" link?
http://www.rubycentral.org/cgi-bin/submit.rb?css=base -- 404 not found

It seems for MOST Ruby-users, Ruby is a hobby, a curiosity, something
to learn to learn "another language". Well-meaning people set up a
helpful website, but when their day job takes over their life, the
hobby project gets abandoned.

Links of Ruby websites always seem unfinished and ugly.

Rails is encouraging : http://www.rubyonrails.org/

I hope there are more people able to follow-through on their interest in Ruby.
I hope people can collaborate to make a few GREAT Ruby websites,
instead of dozens of unfinished broken ones.
... also ...
I hope Ruby Central Inc becomes a non-profit so some companies and
people can make a tax-deductible contribution to Ruby development.
It would be amazing what one full-time Ruby "teacher and evangelist"
could do if they had good webdesign skills.
I hope Pragmatic Programmers keep writing great books on Ruby, and are
financially rewarded enough to encourage others to do the same.

 

[Neil Stevens]

I think Ruby's popularity is growing, but I can't help but wonder what
we can do to accelerate its adoption.

Why, what do you hope to achieve?

I think we've all seen superior technologies go extinct due to bad
marketing/perception--sadly, perception can be more important than
reality at times.

The technologies that went extinct were tied to companies that died or
abandoned them. There is no danger of that with Ruby.

So if this is the only reason to worry about adoption, instead of just
improving Ruby for ourselves, I think it's wasted effort.

Remember this, too: the more useful Ruby is for those who use it, the more
useful Ruby is for those who would use it.

 

[David Garamond]

I think Ruby's popularity is growing, but I can't help but wonder what
we can do to accelerate its adoption.

More O'Reilly books please There are currently 30 or so (or is it
100?) for Perl, probably 10 for Python, and only 1-2 for Ruby.

Getting published by O'Reilly is nice because: a) it's one of the most
famous, so it becomes sort of a barometer; b) Safari; c) short copyright
period, so who knows in 5 years we will have several free Ruby books
available.

So please write for O'Reilly, or write to O'Reilly requesting more Ruby
books. There are lots of topics that can be covered and I think it has
been discussed in this list fairly recently.

Regards,
dave

 

[trans. (T. Onoma)]

10:42 +0000, Thursday wrote:
| > I think Ruby's popularity is growing, but I can't help but wonder what
| > we can do to accelerate its adoption.
|
| Why, what do you hope to achieve?
|
| > I think we've all seen superior technologies go extinct due to bad
| > marketing/perception--sadly, perception can be more important than
| > reality at times.
|
| The technologies that went extinct were tied to companies that died or
| abandoned them. There is no danger of that with Ruby.
|
| So if this is the only reason to worry about adoption, instead of just
| improving Ruby for ourselves, I think it's wasted effort.
|
| Remember this, too: the more useful Ruby is for those who use it, the more
| useful Ruby is for those who would use it.

| --
| Neil Stevens - (e-mail address removed)
| "The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who
| are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."
|                                                 -- Albert Einstein(?)

How ironic that your quote essentially contradicts you.

T.

 

[Alexander Kellett]

| Remember this, too: the more useful Ruby is for those who use it,
the more
| useful Ruby is for those who would use it.

| --
| Neil Stevens - (e-mail address removed)
| "The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people
who
| are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."
|                                                 -- Albert Einstein(?)

How ironic that your quote essentially contradicts you.

actually i find it ironic that u find irony in something
that is so obviously non ironic! . i would have say that
in this case hyping a language is the evil of which is spoken
and the email from neil the appropriate counter action.

regards
Alex

 

[David A. Black]

Hi --

Even just two days ago, I went to RubyCentral.org (the people that put
on the Ruby Conference and have the Ruby Codefest Grant program) --
offering to make a financial contribution, and what do I get from
their "contact us" link?
http://www.rubycentral.org/cgi-bin/submit.rb?css=base -- 404 not found

Whoops -- I seem to have accidentally archived the submit form along
with some other CGI stuff from a finished project! Thanks for the
report.

I hope Ruby Central Inc becomes a non-profit so some companies and
people can make a tax-deductible contribution to Ruby development.

It is! They can! We were granted 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status in
August, 2004. (See ruby-talk:108189.)

Our PayPal account is: (e-mail address removed). We're happy to take
contributions directly there, or if you know anyone who wants more
information first, or who is interested in the possibility of
sponsoring a specific project, they can contact one or more of the
directors directly. (That's me, Chad Fowler ([email protected]),
and Rich Kilmer ([email protected]).)


David

 

[Stefan Scholl]

Why, what do you hope to achieve?

That way it would be more likely to be able to use Ruby at work.

 

[Neil Stevens]

| --
| Neil Stevens - (e-mail address removed)
| "The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who
| are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."
|                                                 -- Albert Einstein(?)

How ironic that your quote essentially contradicts you.

That's only true if you think people who like C++ and Python are evil.

That the perl users are evil goes without saying, though.

 

[gabriele renzi]

Thursday ha scritto:
:

1. a more formal release process--this could be as simple as documenting
what level of testing goes into changes to the stable vs dev branches
before they are committed to CVS.

just my 2cents on this:
I think this is really a worthwhile goal.
I'd like to have a slightly more formal process like
- set a not huge timing for the each .point release (i.e. 4 months). I'd
like this to be short, pointing people to 'stable snapshot' does not
give the same feeling that "use 1.8.3".
- Put someone in charge of it.
- After a fixed period (i.e. after 2 months) declare real feature freeze
(some stuff could change in this period, think of
RSS:arser/Maker,cvs.rb,Tk changes) and just fix bugs.
- Let hackers mess up the next version in peace safely

Well, this mostly just requires a release manager, as matz pointed out
some time ago. Noone candidate him/herself, anyway. Would someone do it
now, please?

2. a bug tracking system where we can report and view bugs--bugzilla is
overkill, maybe something simpler like trac should be considered.

the bug tracking system ATM is here:
http://rubyforge.org/tracker/?group_id=426
probably this need more visibility.
Would it be possible to add a link on the main rubyforge page with
something like "report a bug in Ruby"?
Could this also be put on the main ruby page?

 

[Bil Kleb]

I think Ruby's popularity is growing, but I can't help but wonder what
we can do to accelerate its adoption.

Read and reflect upon ??Crossing the Chasm?? by Moore and
??The Innovator's Dilemma?? by Christensen

 

[Lothar Scholz]

Hello gabriele,

gr> Thursday ha scritto:
gr> :
gr> just my 2cents on this:
gr> I think this is really a worthwhile goal.
gr> I'd like to have a slightly more formal process like
gr> - set a not huge timing for the each .point release (i.e. 4 months). I'd
gr> like this to be short, pointing people to 'stable snapshot' does not
gr> give the same feeling that "use 1.8.3".

I hope we do not - at least with the current ruby development process.

You can't use binary extensions that are compiled against 1.8.1 with
1.8.2 even when the version number suggests this. So as long as the
core team is not willing/able to garantee API stability between patch
releases the situation gets worse.

There are already to much projects out there that are simply out of
date and do not work very well because of the backward compatibility
problem.

gr> - Put someone in charge of it.
gr> - After a fixed period (i.e. after 2 months) declare real feature freeze
gr> (some stuff could change in this period, think of
gr> RSS:arser/Maker,cvs.rb,Tk changes) and just fix bugs.

 

[gabriele renzi]

Lothar Scholz ha scritto:

gr> just my 2cents on this:
gr> I think this is really a worthwhile goal.
gr> I'd like to have a slightly more formal process like
gr> - set a not huge timing for the each .point release (i.e. 4 months). I'd
gr> like this to be short, pointing people to 'stable snapshot' does not
gr> give the same feeling that "use 1.8.3".

I hope we do not - at least with the current ruby development process.

You can't use binary extensions that are compiled against 1.8.1 with
1.8.2 even when the version number suggests this. So as long as the
core team is not willing/able to garantee API stability between patch
releases the situation gets worse.

There are already to much projects out there that are simply out of
date and do not work very well because of the backward compatibility
problem.

good point, thank, I thought it *was* stable.
Should'nt this be true within point release?

 

[Lothar Scholz]

Hello Neil,


NS> Why, what do you hope to achieve?

More people means more project and more extensions.
Bugs are found much earlier and are fixed earlier.

And a more successfull language (in commercial sense) will
result in much more university projects that do some nice
experimental and sophisticated stuff. Having people too use
ruby in ther Ph.D thesis is important. But since they now that
this thesis is important for finding a job later they use
java and other mainstream languages.

And yes, some people like it to make money with ruby and work
8 hours a day with ruby and not java.

 

[Lothar Scholz]

Hello gabriele,


gr> good point, thank, I thought it *was* stable.
gr> Should'nt this be true within point release?

It should. I was very surprised that extensions now
throw an error message about a wrong API even if
linking the so file still works.

The problem is the IMHO not very good decision that
2.0 will be based on Rite and that there will never be
two digit version numbers. So the core team can't make
larger changes or finish rite in the near future.
Only two options and none of them seems to be possible.

I never understood whats the reason for not publishing
a ruby 1.1.10 version.

 

[Tom Copeland]

the bug tracking system ATM is here:
http://rubyforge.org/tracker/?group_id=426
probably this need more visibility.
Would it be possible to add a link on the main rubyforge page with
something like "report a bug in Ruby"?
Could this also be put on the main ruby page?

Good idea, done:

http://rubyforge.org/

Is there a better way to lay out that front page to make stuff like that
more visible?

Thanks,

tom

 

[Premshree Pillai]

Good idea, done:

http://rubyforge.org/

Is there a better way to lay out that front page to make stuff like that
more visible?

Maybe use a bold, Ruby red color?

 

[Tom Copeland]

Maybe use a bold, Ruby red color?

The problem is that since those are mostly links, they show up in
whatever the stylesheet definition is. That seems to override any font
tags I put around them. But I made them all bold... that should at
least make them stand out better...

Yours,

Tom

 

[Premshree Pillai]

The problem is that since those are mostly links, they show up in
whatever the stylesheet definition is. That seems to override any font
tags I put around them. But I made them all bold... that should at

Damn, you're fast! Much better now, I think.