[ANN] Happy Birthday, Ruby, and an announcement

ruby-talk
1

I think once Ruby Central, Inc gets tax exempt status folks could start
contributing to it (that’s what I’m waiting for anyway). Then, that money
could be used in the manner you suggest - dole out small amounts for various
projects. It could also be used to offset conference setup costs, plane
tickets for Matz, or whatever. This might require a committee (yikes!) to
determine who gets what.

In some ways this would be analogous to the Perl Foundation. However, I
think that giving all the money to one or two folks, as the Perl Foundation
did, would be a mistake for the Ruby community. Ruby is behind Perl in the
package/module race, and I think would benefit from a large number of
smaller projects than hardcore development of one or two large projects
(with the possible exception of Cardinal). At this point in time, at least.

We could always combine the bulletin board approach with this as well, I
think.

Regards,

Dan

···

-----Original Message-----
From: Hal E. Fulton [mailto:hal9000@hypermetrics.com]
----- Original Message -----
From: “Robert Feldt” feldt@ce.chalmers.se
To: “ruby-talk ML” ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org
Sent: Monday, February 24, 2003 12:28 PM
Subject: Re: [ANN] Happy Birthday, Ruby, and an announcement…

Ps. David: Great news about the non-profit org. I guess
things haven’t
really taken form yet but do you also plan to sponsor Ruby
projects? I
should be looking for a job soon so if you have a bag of
money… :slight_smile:

Ha! Good idea, Robert, but stand in line. :wink:

Seriously, I think it will be a long time before
this sort of thing happens. (Prove me wrong, please!!)

But here’s another idea I’ve thought of.

There have been times I wanted a certain (often small)
piece of software but didn’t want to write it myself.

I have wished that I could give someone “x” dollars to
do it for me (for sufficiently small values of x).

Of course, the hourly rate might not come to what a
programmer usually makes. But look at all the work
that people do for free. :slight_smile:

In any case, I wouldn’t be opposed to a little
bulletin board where people could swap small amounts
of money for small amounts of work.

Hal

2

Berger, Daniel wrote:

In some ways this would be analogous to the Perl Foundation. However, I
think that giving all the money to one or two folks, as the Perl Foundation
did, would be a mistake for the Ruby community. Ruby is behind Perl in the
package/module race, and I think would benefit from a large number of
smaller projects than hardcore development of one or two large projects
(with the possible exception of Cardinal). At this point in time, at least.

Seems to me the small projects are going to get developed as people need
them. What may need more funding are the quantum leaps, like cardinal,
and especially rite.

3

From: Hal E. Fulton [mailto:hal9000@hypermetrics.com]
From: “Robert Feldt” feldt@ce.chalmers.se
To: “ruby-talk ML” ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org
Sent: Monday, February 24, 2003 12:28 PM
Subject: Re: [ANN] Happy Birthday, Ruby, and an announcement…

Ps. David: Great news about the non-profit org. I guess
things haven’t
really taken form yet but do you also plan to sponsor Ruby
projects? I
should be looking for a job soon so if you have a bag of
money… :slight_smile:

> > In some ways this would be analogous to the Perl Foundation. However, I > think that giving all the money to one or two folks, as the Perl Foundation > did, would be a mistake for the Ruby community.

—>Ruby is behind Perl in the package/module race, <----

You know, I think folks need to stop thinking that way. I’m sure you remember
the very long discussion that was generated when David Alan Black (I think)
asked what modules/packages were missing. I don’t remember even one
contribution, other than my own, of things that were really missing from RAA or
already present in the Ruby core. In fact, I think it was you Daniel that
pointed out that the things I thought were missing were actually already
available as well. IIRC, the original question was “What libraries/modules
are missing?” and the answer seemed to be “Nothing, we just need to package up,
document what is already there in a better, easier to understand/use format.”
IMHO, Ruby is not behind in the race, just because there isn’t umpteen
thousand different modules/libraries in RAA as compared to CPAN, it’s just that
Perl needed that many extra modules to equal what Ruby already has. Now I’m
not suggesting that there isn’t a need to keep developing new modules, but
again, I just don’t think Ruby is behind so we should stop saying that, and
possibly putting people off Ruby for a reason that isn’t there.

···

On Tue, 25 Feb 2003 06:45:56 +0900 “Berger, Daniel” djberge@qwest.com wrote:

-----Original Message-----
----- Original Message -----

and I think would benefit from a large number of
smaller projects than hardcore development of one or two large projects
(with the possible exception of Cardinal). At this point in time, at least.

We could always combine the bulletin board approach with this as well, I
think.

Regards,

Dan

–
Daniel P. Zepeda

4

From: Hal E. Fulton [mailto:hal9000@hypermetrics.com]
From: “Robert Feldt” feldt@ce.chalmers.se
To: “ruby-talk ML” ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org
Sent: Monday, February 24, 2003 12:28 PM
Subject: Re: [ANN] Happy Birthday, Ruby, and an announcement…

Ps. David: Great news about the non-profit org. I guess
things haven’t
really taken form yet but do you also plan to sponsor Ruby
projects? I
should be looking for a job soon so if you have a bag of
money… :slight_smile:

> > In some ways this would be analogous to the Perl Foundation. However, I > think that giving all the money to one or two folks, as the Perl

Foundation

did, would be a mistake for the Ruby community.

—>Ruby is behind Perl in the package/module race, <----

You know, I think folks need to stop thinking that way. I’m sure you
remember
the very long discussion that was generated when David Alan Black (I
think)
asked what modules/packages were missing. I don’t remember even one
contribution, other than my own, of things that were really missing from
RAA or
already present in the Ruby core. In fact, I think it was you Daniel that
pointed out that the things I thought were missing were actually already
available as well. IIRC, the original question was “What
libraries/modules
are missing?” and the answer seemed to be “Nothing, we just need to
package up,
document what is already there in a better, easier to understand/use
format.”
IMHO, Ruby is not behind in the race, just because there isn’t umpteen
thousand different modules/libraries in RAA as compared to CPAN, it’s just
that
Perl needed that many extra modules to equal what Ruby already has. Now
I’m
not suggesting that there isn’t a need to keep developing new modules, but
again, I just don’t think Ruby is behind so we should stop saying
that, and
possibly putting people off Ruby for a reason that isn’t there.

and I think would benefit from a large number of
smaller projects than hardcore development of one or two large projects
(with the possible exception of Cardinal). At this point in time, at
least.

We could always combine the bulletin board approach with this as well, I
think.

Regards,

Dan

Personally, something I’d love to see not happen anymore is for Perl to
come up every time we talk about Ruby’s needs. Ruby isn’t Perl. It may
have started out as a kind of Perl replacement, but it’s grown to be much
more. I don’t mean it’s much more than Perl, of course. It’s just
different. Though it can play in the same space, I don’t believe its
primary strengths are there.

I think the question for the comunity here is, “Do we want to play catchup
with Perl, or do we want to find the space where Ruby can really
differentiate itself and focus on that?” I’m voting for the latter. It’s
easy to copy–it’s more challenging to innovate.

Chad

···

----- Original Message -----
From: “Daniel P. Zepeda” daniel@zepeda-zone.net
To: “ruby-talk ML” ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org
Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2003 12:05 PM
Subject: Re: [ANN] Happy Birthday, Ruby, and an announcement…

On Tue, 25 Feb 2003 06:45:56 +0900 > “Berger, Daniel” djberge@qwest.com wrote:

-----Original Message-----
----- Original Message -----

5

Chad Fowler wrote:

Personally, something I’d love to see not happen anymore is for Perl to
come up every time we talk about Ruby’s needs. Ruby isn’t Perl. It may
have started out as a kind of Perl replacement, but it’s grown to be much
more. I don’t mean it’s much more than Perl, of course. It’s just
different. Though it can play in the same space, I don’t believe its
primary strengths are there.

I think the question for the comunity here is, “Do we want to play catchup
with Perl, or do we want to find the space where Ruby can really
differentiate itself and focus on that?” I’m voting for the latter. It’s
easy to copy–it’s more challenging to innovate.

Chad

In this instance, I referred toPerl mainly because I couldn’t think of any
other open-source project that had setup a tax-exempt foundation (i.e. The Perl
Foundation) which took donations, then used those funds to pay individuals to
work on specific tasks for the benefit of the language. Does Linux, Python or
Apache have something like this? I don’t know. I don’t think so, but I
could very well be wrong.

I didn’t mean for this to turn into a Ruby vs. Perl discussion. I was just
interested in seeing what the Perl Foundation had done right (and what it had
done wrong, if anything), and seeing if we should model ourselves after the
Perl community in that respect, or if we should go a different route.
Nothing to do with the language itself, per se.

Regards,

Dan

···

–
a = [74, 117, 115, 116, 32, 65, 110, 111, 116, 104, 101, 114, 32, 82]
a.push(117,98, 121, 32, 72, 97, 99, 107, 101, 114)
puts a.pack(“C*”)

6

I think the question for the comunity here is, “Do we want to
play catchup
with Perl, or do we want to find the space where Ruby can
really
differentiate itself and focus on that?” I’m voting for the
latter. It’s
easy to copy–it’s more challenging to innovate.

It’s also pretty easy to innovate yourself right out of the public
eye. Ruby should be accessable; “paradigm shifting” is ok for
research and such, but you want people to USE it, and familiararity
is what keeps people from simply looking then moving on.

···

=====

Yahoo IM: michael_s_campbell

Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, more

7

Chad Fowler wrote:

Personally, something I’d love to see not happen anymore is for Perl
to
come up every time we talk about Ruby’s needs. Ruby isn’t Perl. It may
have started out as a kind of Perl replacement, but it’s grown to be
much
more. I don’t mean it’s much more than Perl, of course. It’s just
different. Though it can play in the same space, I don’t believe its
primary strengths are there.

I think the question for the comunity here is, “Do we want to play
catchup
with Perl, or do we want to find the space where Ruby can really
differentiate itself and focus on that?” I’m voting for the latter.
It’s
easy to copy–it’s more challenging to innovate.

Chad

In this instance, I referred toPerl mainly because I couldn’t think of any
other open-source project that had setup a tax-exempt foundation (i.e. The
Perl
Foundation) which took donations, then used those funds to pay individuals
to
work on specific tasks for the benefit of the language. Does Linux,
Python or
Apache have something like this? I don’t know. I don’t think so, but I
could very well be wrong.

I didn’t mean for this to turn into a Ruby vs. Perl discussion. I was
just
interested in seeing what the Perl Foundation had done right (and what it
had
done wrong, if anything), and seeing if we should model ourselves after
the
Perl community in that respect, or if we should go a different route.
Nothing to do with the language itself, per se.

Regards,

Dan

Sorry, Dan. I see that this looked like I was specifically referring to you
in this case. I didn’t mean it to seem that way at all. Long day at the
office. :wink:

The Perl comparison has been a general theme around here (I don’t have to
tell you that). I also don’t mean to say that the Ruby community is at all
unique in its following of another more proven/accepted product. I’d say
(regretfully) that this is a rampant problem in open source in general.

BTW,

Regards,
Chad

···

----- Original Message -----
From: “Daniel Berger” djberge@qwest.com
To: “ruby-talk ML” ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org
Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2003 9:54 PM
Subject: Re: [ANN] Happy Birthday, Ruby, and an announcement…

8

Agreed, as long as you aren’t saying that innovation and familiarity are
necessarily at odds with each other.

Ruby itself is an innovative combination of a number of familiar idioms,
creating–to use a cliche–a whole that is greater than its parts.

Chad

···

----- Original Message -----
From: “Michael Campbell” michael_s_campbell@yahoo.com
To: “ruby-talk ML” ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org
Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2003 9:59 PM
Subject: Re: [ANN] Happy Birthday, Ruby, and an announcement…

I think the question for the comunity here is, “Do we want to
play catchup
with Perl, or do we want to find the space where Ruby can
really
differentiate itself and focus on that?” I’m voting for the
latter. It’s
easy to copy–it’s more challenging to innovate.

It’s also pretty easy to innovate yourself right out of the public
eye. Ruby should be accessable; “paradigm shifting” is ok for
research and such, but you want people to USE it, and familiararity
is what keeps people from simply looking then moving on.