Hi –
Hi,
Inferring from people’s response, I realize that this subject is rather
controversial. But if we can think positively just for a moment, all the
discussions can also be viewed for the goodness of Ruby itself.
I don’t think the intention is ever to cannibalize or destroy Ruby at
all. It is more to give Ruby some challenges, and if it is viewed that
the current Ruby can answer these challenges well, then we just move
on.
But consider:
-
What about the challenges that Ruby poses to programmers, in the
ways they think about languages? Is the burden entirely on the
language?
-
What is “well”? Matz has said over and over that he makes
trade-offs and compromises, quite knowingly. That means that Ruby
will probably never do certain things “well”, in some absolute sense.
But Ruby as a totality does things remarkably well.
It is good if Ruby stays as the current Ruby. However, language
technology also continues to progress. When I first learned Tcl, I was
very excited about it. But then I found Perl was easier and more
powerful. And then I found Python was easier and as powerful. And then I
found that Ruby was more consistent, as easy, and as powerful. Based on
my personal experience, some languages got popular and then faded away,
while others stay for a long time. Ruby also has two choices: to remain
the same or to change with new technologies.
Ontogeny does not recapitulate philogeny in programming languages 
In other words, while things may evolve and change, any particular
programming language does not have to go through all the phases that
the ambient history is going through. This is why there’s more than
one programming language
I really do hope that the current Ruby will withstand the test of
time for many-many years to come, just like the C language. But I
also hope that Ruby will not stay the same just for the sake of
staticity, but because it can always answer new challenges in its
current form. However, when the time does come for a new change
(like Perl to Perl 6?), I hope that Ruby will also.
That’s why probably two groups will be good. comp.lang.ruby discusess on
exploring the power of Ruby as it is, while comp.lang.ruby.beyond
discusses on possible future paths that may be taken by Ruby. I think the
discussions on private variables and method overloading are really
appropriate for comp.lang.ruby.beyond. On the other hand, if it turns
out that the current Ruby is close to the ultimate language (just like
C is probably the “ultimate assembly language”), then the discussions on
comp.lang.ruby.beyond will die by themselves…
I hope you won’t mind my saying… I think there are some really
serious problems with that name. If you’re talking about the future
development of Ruby (as opposed to projects taking inspiration from
Ruby), there are already venues for discussion, and “beyond” sounds
wrong anyway (as opposed to “devel” or “future” or whatever).
And if you’re talking about non-Ruby projects inspired by Ruby, like
the recent ‘R’ discussion, then having the name of Ruby hardwired into
the newsgroup name is very misleading. Years from now, whatever is
going on in such a group may have nothing whatsoever to do with Ruby,
and yet there will be a connection perceived, and/or an endless need
to explain the history of the name and convince people that there is
no connection.
It would be a bit like comp.lang.perl.beyond instead of
comp.lang.ruby… or something.
David
···
On Tue, 1 Oct 2002, William Djaja Tjokroaminata wrote:
–
David Alan Black | Register for RubyConf 2002!
home: dblack@candle.superlink.net | November 1-3
work: blackdav@shu.edu | Seattle, WA, USA
Web: http://pirate.shu.edu/~blackdav | http://www.rubyconf.com
: -sc