Hi,
if one subtracts [ANN] postings during the last few weeks traffic here
seems to have plummeted. Are there any obvious reasons I might be
overlooking?
Btw. I recall we once had long term statistics about posting
frequencies etc. Is there anybody out there still generating those?
Kind regards
robert
--
[guy, jim].each {|him| remember.him do |as, often| as.you_can - without end}
http://blog.rubybestpractices.com/
I was actually thinking the same thing myself. In fact, there has been 10X the traffic on the XSL list I'm on and trust me that's usually one of the slower lists. 
I do wonder if it is because school is almost finished, so we don't have as many new people trying out Ruby.
Wayne
________________________________
From: Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com>
To: ruby-talk <ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org>
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2014 10:20 AM
Subject: Are we dying?
Hi,
if one subtracts [ANN] postings during the last few weeks traffic here
seems to have plummeted. Are there any obvious reasons I might be
overlooking?
I’m here! Heh. Just dealing with other issues. Don’t worry, I will have questions soon.
Cheers
On Mar 31, 2014, at 11:20 AM, Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> wrote:
if one subtracts [ANN] postings during the last few weeks traffic here
seems to have plummeted. Are there any obvious reasons I might be
overlooking?
Matz said he supported switching off the bridge between the forum and
the list, unless the spam coming from the forum was taken care of. I
guess they did switched it off, and it seems that most of the traffic
was coming from the forum 
Jesus.
On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 5:20 PM, Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> wrote:
Hi,
if one subtracts [ANN] postings during the last few weeks traffic here
seems to have plummeted. Are there any obvious reasons I might be
overlooking?
Quoting Robert Klemme (shortcutter@googlemail.com):
if one subtracts [ANN] postings during the last few weeks traffic here
seems to have plummeted. Are there any obvious reasons I might be
overlooking?
During the last months, a few people posted lots of questions, almost
all of which appeared not to have been researched enough by the
questioner. My personal opinion is that at least three of the names
used were from the same individual.
If you take away those questions, not much remained.
I would never have asked those people to leave - I want to be clear
about this. But the list is a much more livable community now. That
sort of questioning just for the sake of it has distanced several
contributors. Again, this is according to my personal opinion.
Everybody is free to join, by using a real e-mail address. People with
enough goodwill can find this list. With time, real questions
motivated by concrete needs will show up again.
Carlo
Subject: Are we dying?
Date: Mon 31 Mar 14 05:20:00PM +0200
--
* Se la Strada e la sua Virtu' non fossero state messe da parte,
* K * Carlo E. Prelz - fluido@fluido.as che bisogno ci sarebbe
* di parlare tanto di amore e di rettitudine? (Chuang-Tzu)
Hi! My heartfelt thanks for starting this thread.
First, a quick introduction: I'm a long-term sysadmin/scripter, but relatively new to Ruby. Had heard about it for the better part of a decade, but only last year really dug into it and realized how truly awesome it is; I've now made the switch from P.* to Ruby. That being said, after I subscribed -- which was no mean feat (see below) -- I was worried this list *was* dead. Glad to hear that its demise "has been greatly exaggerated."
But a few things that I, as a newbie, may have insight into that you old-timers don't:
1) It's not really clear what the mailing list is vs. what the web forum is, at least, from https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/community/mailing-lists/ . A bit more verbosity there would probably be helpful in landing new subscribers.
2) It's hard to *subscribe* to the mailing list. First, there's the link to the forum, with no discernible differentiation from the mailing list. Next, there's the web form to subscribe with... that doesn't work. (I've tried with both my Google and personal accounts -- no soup.) I humbly submit that making the manual method to subscribe be listed *first*.
2) IMHO, I might also throw some verbiage in about what Ruby is, and how it differs from Rails. While it's obvious to *us*, that's only because we have our hands dirty. But, to the uninitiated, Ruby/Rails suffers much the same confusion as Java/Javascript. Explaining which someone wants to subscribe to from the get-go would probably be rather helpful. (Indeed, just a couple days ago, I directed someone from the Rails list to ruby-talk).
Lastly, speaking as a sysadmin, I think Ruby has an image issue: people *do* confuse it with rails; people *don't* know how awesome a scripting language it is. In a time when Perl is moribund-at-best, and Ruby does so many things so well (e.g., it's the first truly enjoyable OOP exposure I've had), it might be handy if folks took time to perhaps put pen to paper, and write an article or two for (say) Linux Magazine, or their ilk.
$.02, YMMV, etc.,
-Ken
On 2014-03-31 11:20, Robert Klemme wrote:
Three months later I can say that the observation seems to be
confirmed: it's sad but this forum (the mailing list) is actually
starving. Apart from the mentioned forum <-> mailing list gateway
issues there does not seem to be a clear reason. Maybe mailing lists
are not fashionable any more.
Or Ruby is not used as much as before. This is actually suggested by
some statistics:
http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/Ruby.html
Others indicate differently:
http://langpop.com/timeline.html
Kind regards
robert
On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 5:20 PM, Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> wrote:
if one subtracts [ANN] postings during the last few weeks traffic here
seems to have plummeted. Are there any obvious reasons I might be
overlooking?
--
[guy, jim].each {|him| remember.him do |as, often| as.you_can - without end}
http://blog.rubybestpractices.com/
I remember seeing that they wanted to cut the bridge between the two. I just didn't think the forum was where most people went. Guess I was wrong.
Wayne
Personally, if this is the case I'm thrilled, and I hope the change
"sticks". Ever since it was first plugged in, the web forum has been the
source of the lowest-quality "please do my homework for me" traffic on this
list. It's a big part of why I don't participate as much as I used to.
/end crotchety oldster rant.
On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 11:26 AM, Jesús Gabriel y Galán < jgabrielygalan@gmail.com> wrote:
Matz said he supported switching off the bridge between the forum and
the list, unless the spam coming from the forum was taken care of. I
guess they did switched it off, and it seems that most of the traffic
was coming from the forum
Makes sense, the Forums are closer to web-2.0 than the mailing lists which will probably stop working IMHO at some point in the future. Maybe this could be a nice (Sinatra/Rails/Whatever) project for ruby developers. Trying to build something that is between (or bridges) a modern, lightweight forum with a mailing list or even add more ways of communicating: twitter, blogs, facebook posts... I can't tell much about the quality a 140 chars question but otherwise, would be an interesting project, given the fact that senior contributors seem to notice an important decrease in traffic.
Panagiotis (atmosx) Atmatzidis
email: atma@convalesco.org
URL: http://www.convalesco.org
GnuPG ID: 0x1A7BFEC5
gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 1A7BFEC5
"As you set out for Ithaca, hope the voyage is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery [...]" - C. P. Cavafy
On 31 Μαρ 2014, at 17:28 , Wayne Brisette <wbrisett@att.net> wrote:
I remember seeing that they wanted to cut the bridge between the two. I just didn't think the forum was where most people went. Guess I was wrong.
Wayne
Everybody is free to join, by using a real e-mail address. People with
enough goodwill can find this list. With time, real questions
motivated by concrete needs will show up again.
Actually I second that. There came quite a lot of, well, uninteresting
content from ruby-forum.com. I’d however like a definite answer on this,
as it may as well just be some technical issue coincidenting with Matz’
request for removing the bridge. Just as we had for the comp.lang.ruby
usenet group disconnection.
Carlo
Valete,
Marvin
Am 31.03.2014 20:51, schrieb Carlo E. Prelz:
--
Blog: http://www.quintilianus.eu
I will reject HTML emails. | Ich akzeptiere keine HTML-Nachrichten.
>
Use GnuPG for mail encryption: | GnuPG für Mail-Verschlüsselung:
http://www.gnupg.org | The GNU Privacy Guard
I guess you are right. But those were the questions that I was able to
answer :D.
I don't do much Ruby at work, and I don't have much time recently for
side projects. At times, this list has been my only way of practicing
Ruby somewhat (I don't like web forums), so I miss it, even the low
quality questions.
But I agree with you, and I'd like to see more discussions about
interesting topics, along with some newbie questions so I can feel
useful :).
Can we do something?
Jesus.
On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 8:09 PM, Avdi Grimm <groups@inbox.avdi.org> wrote:
On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 11:26 AM, Jesús Gabriel y Galán > <jgabrielygalan@gmail.com> wrote:
Matz said he supported switching off the bridge between the forum and
the list, unless the spam coming from the forum was taken care of. I
guess they did switched it off, and it seems that most of the traffic
was coming from the forumPersonally, if this is the case I'm thrilled, and I hope the change
"sticks". Ever since it was first plugged in, the web forum has been the
source of the lowest-quality "please do my homework for me" traffic on this
list. It's a big part of why I don't participate as much as I used to./end crotchety oldster rant.
Hi! My heartfelt thanks for starting this thread.
You're welcome!
First, a quick introduction: I'm a long-term sysadmin/scripter, but
relatively new to Ruby. Had heard about it for the better part of a decade,
but only last year really dug into it and realized how truly awesome it is;
I've now made the switch from P.* to Ruby. That being said, after I
subscribed -- which was no mean feat (see below) -- I was worried this list
*was* dead. Glad to hear that its demise "has been greatly exaggerated."But a few things that I, as a newbie, may have insight into that you
old-timers don't:1) It's not really clear what the mailing list is vs. what the web forum is,
at least, from Mailing Lists . A
bit more verbosity there would probably be helpful in landing new
subscribers.
Maybe you can add this yourself. Since you have your experience
freshly in mind you may come up with a better explanation than the
"old timers". There is a section on contributing:
https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/about/website/
2) It's hard to *subscribe* to the mailing list. First, there's the link to
the forum, with no discernible differentiation from the mailing list. Next,
there's the web form to subscribe with... that doesn't work. (I've tried
with both my Google and personal accounts -- no soup.) I humbly submit that
making the manual method to subscribe be listed *first*.
These two items above are really valuable feedback! Thank you for
that! I am not sure where to report the mailing list subscription
issues - maybe the contribution site helps here as well?
2) IMHO, I might also throw some verbiage in about what Ruby is, and how it
differs from Rails. While it's obvious to *us*, that's only because we have
our hands dirty. But, to the uninitiated, Ruby/Rails suffers much the same
confusion as Java/Javascript. Explaining which someone wants to subscribe
to from the get-go would probably be rather helpful. (Indeed, just a couple
days ago, I directed someone from the Rails list to ruby-talk).
I am really not sure how we would manage to do this. If Rails is the
"killer app" for Ruby and most people come to Ruby via that road I
guess it will be difficult to change the public recognition -
especially as non marketing pro with only so much time. I agree it
would be desirable to get more people to know Ruby independent of
Rails and for all the other nice features.
Lastly, speaking as a sysadmin, I think Ruby has an image issue: people *do*
confuse it with rails; people *don't* know how awesome a scripting language
it is. In a time when Perl is moribund-at-best, and Ruby does so many
things so well (e.g., it's the first truly enjoyable OOP exposure I've had),
it might be handy if folks took time to perhaps put pen to paper, and write
an article or two for (say) Linux Magazine, or their ilk.
As said, changing an image is not that easy.
Kind regards
robert
On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 6:03 PM, Ken D'Ambrosio <ken@jots.org> wrote:
On 2014-03-31 11:20, Robert Klemme wrote:
--
[guy, jim].each {|him| remember.him do |as, often| as.you_can - without end}
http://blog.rubybestpractices.com/
Sorry for the late reply:
There was a problem with the web form so that the subscription requests
queued up for quite some time. It's fixed since a couple of days.
Regards,
Marcus
Am 01.04.2014 18:03, schrieb Ken D'Ambrosio:
2) It's hard to *subscribe* to the mailing list. First, there's the
link to the forum, with no discernible differentiation from the mailing
list. Next, there's the web form to subscribe with... that doesn't
work. (I've tried with both my Google and personal accounts -- no
soup.) I humbly submit that making the manual method to subscribe be
listed *first*.
--
GitHub: stomar (Marcus Stollsteimer) · GitHub
PGP: 0x6B3A101A
I think it could be multiple things. Ruby as a stand-alone language always seemed to be overshadowed by Rails. When I look in my industry (semiconductors), most people are still using Perl, with some migrating over to Python and a few of us Ruby. But, of the non-Perl languages Python seems to be gaining some traction.
There are also now dozens of languages out there for various things (Haskell, Erlang, etc.) that have also I think added to the perceived 'decline'. Ruby isn't the sexy new language anymore.
But that's just what I'm thinking here. Could be I'm way off base.
Wayne
It is now official. TIOBE has confirmed: Ruby is dying
On Mon, Jun 30, 2014 at 7:21 AM, Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> wrote:
Or Ruby is not used as much as before. This is actually suggested by
some statistics:
Home - TIOBE
--
Tony Arcieri
Yup, and LOGO is catching up:
http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html#container
As for me, I'm too busy coding ruby to care.
Andrew Vit
On 14-06-30, 10:25, Tony Arcieri wrote:
It is now official. TIOBE has confirmed: Ruby is dying
As for me, I'm too busy HAVING FUN coding ruby to care! 
As for me, I'm too busy coding ruby to care.
Andrew Vit
Why not simply compare the main Ruby and Python MLs. That would surely indicate any decline of Ruby relative to Python.
gvim
On 30/06/2014 15:21, Robert Klemme wrote:
On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 5:20 PM, Robert Klemme > <shortcutter@googlemail.com> wrote:
if one subtracts [ANN] postings during the last few weeks traffic here
seems to have plummeted. Are there any obvious reasons I might be
overlooking?Three months later I can say that the observation seems to be
confirmed: it's sad but this forum (the mailing list) is actually
starving. Apart from the mentioned forum <-> mailing list gateway
issues there does not seem to be a clear reason. Maybe mailing lists
are not fashionable any more.Or Ruby is not used as much as before. This is actually suggested by
some statistics:
Home - TIOBEOthers indicate differently:
http://langpop.com/timeline.htmlKind regards
robert
It already exists. It's called Discourse, it's an open-source Rails
application, and it has the express goal of doing for web forums what Stack
Overflow did for question-answer sites. It's used by (among others) the
Thoughtbot Learn forum, the Ruby Rogues Parley forum, as well as such
high-profile non-programming fora as the BoingBoing comments area.
They are always happy to get more contributors!
On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 1:53 PM, Panagiotis Atmatzidis <atma@convalesco.org>wrote:
Maybe this could be a nice (Sinatra/Rails/Whatever) project for ruby
developers. Trying to build something that is between (or bridges) a
modern, lightweight forum with a mailing list