Hi --
I guess I should have expounded on my use of the word
"professional". Everything you say, Dave, is right, but we are
forgetting the even larger
s/Dave/David/
community that decrys Ruby as too slow and a "hobbyist language,"
that is "not fit for enterprise (*shudder*) use".
But what's the opposite of forgetting them? Not, I think, having Ruby
dance to their tune. Ignoring them, perhaps?
Ruby, by the way, is a great hobbyist language. At least I found it
so, in the years I was using it before programming shifted from being
a hobby (admitted a rather consuming one) to being a professional
pursuit for me. But I know what you mean: people mean the term as an
insult.
I myself have use Ruby in a professional project, so I am not saying
anything against that, but more of those people that I run into and
deal with that just don't understand Ruby because it's too young and
slow, usually comparing it to Perl.
Well, it's not Ruby's fault -- every language was 13 years old at some
point in its life
I have to say, I've seen a lot of discussion over the years about how
to get people to use Ruby; but I don't know of a single case where
anything got anyone to try Ruby except Ruby. I don't think anyone has
ever been convinced by a feature list, or benchmarks (well, definitely
not that
or anything other than the language itself.
And usually by the time people are saying publicly that they don't
like Ruby, they've seen at least as much of Ruby as I had when I
decided it was my dream language. So they probably really don't like
Ruby.
Also, the issue that it's something else that needs to be installed has been
a hindrance to the adoption of the language in larger companies, while Perl
and Java are automatically installed on any server. This is why JRuby is
such a great project (as most people have realized and hell is the basis of
the project IIRC) and it will help put Ruby in a more "professional" light
to the rest of IT.
I think this is changing, though the tendency to slice Ruby up into
packages is annoying since it makes installing it artificially
difficult and prolonged.
I wasn't trying to say that Ruby is not to be used professionally yet; the
language has definitely proved itself many times in such environments.
However, to get more people (especially the Perl guys) to even try the
language, these improvements need to be made. Then there will only be the "I
like Perl better" argument, for which we can reply "Your loss."
I think a better reply is: "So, how 'bout those Mets?"
It's
better to compare experiences than languages, I think. It's like
musical instruments: mine doesn't have to be better than yours to be
more suited to me.
David
--
Q. What's a good holiday present for the serious Rails developer?
A. RUBY FOR RAILS by David A. Black (
http://www.manning.com/black)
aka The Ruby book for Rails developers!
Q. Where can I get Ruby/Rails on-site training, consulting, coaching?
A. Ruby Power and Light, LLC (
http://www.rubypal.com)
