richard lyman wrote:
Wouldn't it be a good idea to make a webform where you can register if you're interested in paying, just to see how many that are willing to sacrifice some money to the ruby-gods?
Not to be negative, but the cost of registering =~ 0, while actually paying is a different story.
Those who got jobs where they use ruby alot maybe can get the company to send little money each month too.
Seems like a possibility if a company could write it off as a charitable donation.
Also I think companies would be more likely to send money if they got some exposer/recognition when they did donate.
I volunteer for a charity auction every year and during the procurement process I am always amazed at how generous people/companies are if you just ask. But at the same time it is always important to highlight the benefits of donating (which is usually exposer and recognition... being able to say that they are a member of the "Ruby Development Trust" or something like that).
-Charlie
So instead of spending money the people should spend time and help to
improve the libraries. There is much work to do, but yes - it's
work, sometimes really hard work. And thats why the situation is so worse,
people like to play with ruby in there freetime but they don't like to
work on projects resulting in hundrets of fucked up libraries that
never got beyond the proof of concept level.
Very true, but what about those of us who are very busy, or very
incompetent and feel guilty :)... Seriously I don't think we should
worry too much about _how much_ money will come in. It's the type of
thing that can have a snowball effect if things go well. At the moment
I'm stone broke because I'm working to start a company, however I
would sign up straight away for say 15$ a month, and if the company
goes well certainly more. Ruby has saved my life in numerous
situatuions already in the last month.
Also, I'm considering using ruby for some important apps. I may be
turning corporate already but it reassures me to think there's funding
going on (as little as it may be) to give the ruby projects momentum
(along with the momentum of people helping out of course). If I feel
like this I can only imagine how it looks to large companies.
Besides why do we need to pay someone fulltime right off the bat.
Aren't there other needs such as equipement or funding conferences and
such. If my contribution simply pays someone a big "thank you, keep it
coming" for all the overtime spent working at night and on the
weekends I'll still be happy.
On Sat, 10 Jul 2004 00:02:32 +0900, Friedrich Dominicus
What I especially dislike is breaking backwards compatiblity. Nothing
is more annoying then coming back to a software you have written and
change it over and over again just because a new version of the
Interpreter/Compiler was shipped.
Most of the changes planned for Ruby2 -- except Rite, IIRC -- will be
in Ruby 1.9 which is currently in development now.
Well I'm very much suprised that most seem to appreciate Ruby 2. I
have a very ungut feeling about it all has the "features" of the
second system which Brooks describes in book the mythical man month.
Do I have to remind you of the big troubles from Perl 4.x to Perl 5.x
and then again from 5.x somewhat to 5.8? How long are they talking
about Parrot now? 3 years?
I have some bad feelings towards ruby2, mainly because the language
will expand in ways I don't like like @_vars, named parameters not
equal to positional ones and changes in block variable handling.
But I prefer to accept ideas from more wise people, in the end thay
gave me this wonderful language
Anyway there are some nice things in ruby2, and especially people feel
the need for a better runtime, more than a better language..
Ruby will remain ruby even in the next version, You should not think
of a *huge* change.
Some of the changes will appear in the upcoming 1.9 release, some
things will get deprecated and so on, to allow a safer transition.
And rite is *years* in the future, just like Python3000 or perl6.
Oh it's doable of course, but it will contain tons of bugs from the
beginning and that will last at least up to version 2.2 to shake out
most of them. Is that really worth it?
You could still use ruby 1.9.9 until 2.2 come out. ruby-lang.org has
been running on 1.6 up to some months ago.
What I especially dislike is breaking backwards compatiblity. Nothing
is more annoying then coming back to a software you have written and
change it over and over again just because a new version of the
Interpreter/Compiler was shipped.
the change won't be as big as perl4->perl5 so all this thing you may
need to change will be not so really much, imo.
Ah yes it is probably just a bit annoying to hobbyists, because of all
the new shiny features. But for those happy with what the've written
in Ruby 1.8....
they have to choice to still use 1.8, what's wrong with it?
Whoever will/does/have work(ed) on the VM should think at least twice
about what the Squeak people have done....
??
···
il Fri, 09 Jul 2004 17:02:34 +0200, Friedrich Dominicus <just-for-news-frido@q-software-solutions.de> ha scritto::
>>
>> What are you missing?
>> What is supposed to be added to Ruby 2.0
> See http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby?Rite
Well I'm very much suprised that most seem to appreciate Ruby 2. I
have a very ungut feeling about it all has the "features" of the
second system which Brooks describes in book the mythical man month.
Do I have to remind you of the big troubles from Perl 4.x to Perl 5.x
and then again from 5.x somewhat to 5.8? How long are they talking
about Parrot now? 3 years?
I too sometimes find myself worrying that Ruby 2.x will include too
many features and design additions... but when I feel that, what I
remind myself is: trust Matz Ruby 2 will be bigger than Ruby 1,
but I trust Matz to keep it non-bloated and, as he says, still Ruby.
I do hope that, as methods and libraries are added, others will
disappear, keeping the overall weight of the thing under control.
Well I'm very much suprised that most seem to appreciate Ruby 2. I
have a very ungut feeling about it all has the "features" of the
second system which Brooks describes in book the mythical man month.
I disagree. What features exactly do you see as the signs of second system syndrome?
Basically Ruby2 tries to fix some design mistakes of Ruby 1.x and improves a bit on its syntax. (Syntax matters!) Features like keyword argument has been requested for years. I don't see Ruby2 trying to add bells & whistles or include the kitchen sink.
Do I have to remind you of the big troubles from Perl 4.x to Perl 5.x
So do you prefer to use Perl4? (Not me, thanks). And anyway, what "big" troubles are there? Perl5 is very much backward compatible than Perl4.
and then again from 5.x somewhat to 5.8?
Again, what are the issues do you experience? Virtually all my Perl scripts run fine between 5.005, 5.6.x, and 5.8.
> How long are they talking
about Parrot now? 3 years?
Oh it's doable of course, but it will contain tons of bugs from the
beginning and that will last at least up to version 2.2 to shake out
most of them. Is that really worth it?
I'd say yes. A language that doesn't evolve is a dead language.
What I especially dislike is breaking backwards compatiblity. Nothing
is more annoying then coming back to a software you have written and
change it over and over again just because a new version of the
Interpreter/Compiler was shipped.
You can always stick to the old version or the stable branch.
Perl 5.8.x is still being mantained while Perl6/Parrot/5.9.x is being developed.
Apache 1.3.x is still being maintained even though Apache2 is the recommended version to use.
Ruby 1.8.x will still be maintained while Ruby 1.9/Rite is developed.
If you don't want Rite, you can always stick with Ruby 1.8.
Well I'm very much suprised that most seem to appreciate Ruby 2. I
have a very ungut feeling about it all has the "features" of the
second system which Brooks describes in book the mythical man month.
Do I have to remind you of the big troubles from Perl 4.x to Perl 5.x
and then again from 5.x somewhat to 5.8? How long are they talking
about Parrot now? 3 years?
I'd like to think that Ruby was well-designed from the beginning on which means that transitions should be fairly easy to do.
Ruby 2 won't introduce radically new features -- it's just a fairly straight-forward evolution of the components of current Ruby as far as I see it.
Oh it's doable of course, but it will contain tons of bugs from the
beginning and that will last at least up to version 2.2 to shake out
most of them. Is that really worth it?
It depends -- we have a quiet big test suite for Ruby which should prevent some bugs Ruby 2 might otherwise introduce.
What I especially dislike is breaking backwards compatiblity. Nothing
is more annoying then coming back to a software you have written and
change it over and over again just because a new version of the
Interpreter/Compiler was shipped.
I think that the best way to have this is just having multiple interpreters installed -- after all every change, however small, might break your code if you're unlucky.
> richard lyman wrote:
> Wouldn't it be a good idea to make a webform where you can register if
> you're interested in paying, just to see how many that are willing to
> sacrifice some money to the ruby-gods?
Not to be negative, but the cost of registering =~ 0, while actually
paying is a different story.
> Those who got jobs where they use ruby alot maybe can get the company
> to send little money each month too.
Seems like a possibility if a company could write it off as a
charitable donation.
That's the theory behind Ruby Central, Inc., though as I mentioned
before, the process of getting tax-exempt status is dragging on longer
than we'd hoped so we can't yet offer the charitable write-off
scenario (though we can accept donations and sponsorship for
RubyConf). It's literally down to having to revise entire forms
because we've received a late payment from last year's conference in
the interim... and things like that.
I think actually supporting someone on a full salary would be very
hard or impossible, just because of scale, but I certainly foresee
Ruby Central serving as a kind of clearinghouse for support for
projects (beyond RubyConf, that is) once the tax-exempt status comes
through. (Maybe we're being too pessimistic about people and
companies donating on a non-exempt basis (?), but that's been our
judgement so far.)
I too sometimes find myself worrying that Ruby 2.x will include too
many features and design additions... but when I feel that, what I
remind myself is: trust Matz Ruby 2 will be bigger than Ruby 1,
but I trust Matz to keep it non-bloated and, as he says, still Ruby.
As long as "eval.c" looks like it does today i don't trust anyone.
···
--
Best regards, emailto: scholz at scriptolutions dot com
Lothar Scholz http://www.ruby-ide.com
CTO Scriptolutions Ruby, PHP, Python IDE 's
One thing that I think should be done with the native threads is to
provide some sort of abstraction layer so that Ruby2 takes advantage
of OS threads but code remains as portable as possible. Most
threading systems share a subset of equivalent functionality that, if
adhered to, would allow multithreaded ruby code to be both fast and
portable. Of course, this doesn't have to be built into ruby. One
could always write the abstraction layer as a module.
I have some bad feelings towards ruby2, mainly because the language
will expand in ways I don't like like @_vars,
I don't like this either.
named parameters not
equal to positional ones
I have mixed feelings about this. But you can always use positional or hash, ala Ruby 1.8.
and changes in block variable handling.
Personally I prefer this. I predict this will save me hours of debugging time in the future.
But I prefer to accept ideas from more wise people, in the end thay
gave me this wonderful language
Don't worry. matz so far has been very good with design decisions for Ruby.
Some of the changes will appear in the upcoming 1.9 release, some
things will get deprecated and so on, to allow a safer transition.
And rite is *years* in the future, just like Python3000 or perl6.
Isn't Python3k going to be a new _language_ generation (as is Perl6)? Rite is an implementation for Ruby2, and surely the amount/degree of changes between Ruby 1.8 -> Ruby2 vs Python2.x -> Python3K or Perl5 -> Perl6 is much less (again, thanks to the matz' good designs).
Idea Futures
(a.k.a. Prediction Markets, Information Markets)
by Robin Hanson
(This is my top web page on idea futures. Go here to find my
publications on idea futures.)
The Idea Our policy-makers and media rely too much on the "expert"
advice of a self-interested insider's club of pundits and big-shot
academics. These pundits are rewarded too much for telling good
stories, and for supporting each other, rather than for being "right".
Instead, let us create betting markets on most controversial
questions, and treat the current market odds as our best expert
consensus. The real experts (maybe you), would then be rewarded for
their contributions, while clueless pundits would learn to stay away.
You should have a free-speech right to bet on political questions in
policy markets, and we could even base a new form of government on
idea futures.
One can subsidize a market on a question, offering extra rewards to
those who bet right on this question. This subsidy is an "information
prize", offered to those who first provide information on a question,
in contrast to an "accomplishment prize", given to those who first
accomplish some task. Instead of patronizing academic basic research
via proposal peer-review, we should use prizes more.
Publications Idea Futures has been described in many publications by
myself and others, including both academic journals and popular media.
Web Games There are many web sites which let one bet on sports, but
the Foresight Exchange (FX, previously called Idea Futures) was the
first general web betting game, and was the first to allow users to
introduce new claims to bet on. Begun by Sean Morgan, it won the 1995
Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica for world's best web site. Over 1500
players now bet play money on over 200 questions of their choosing.
Check out the current betting odds, an independent 'Zine, and m o r e.
The game's developers once formed a business, Ideosphere (now wholely
owned by Kumo Software) that now seems defunct. Recently other
play-money markets have appeared, such as Hollywood Stock Exchange,
Invisible Hand Electronic Market, Fanatasy Futures, and NewsBet. (I
have no relation with or stake in any of these ventures.) I think the
odds in these markets are often too optimistic, but they do pretty
well considering, and a real money market would do much better.
(Another web market, Java Idea Futures, isn't really an Idea Future in
the above sense; they trade perhaps-not-yet-written Java Applets.)
Other Demonstrations
* Real money political markets, such as Iowa Electronic Markets
and WahlStreet, predict election outcomes better than opinion polls.
* All of our familiar financial instruments - stocks, insurance,
commodity futures, options -- were once forbidden by anti-gambling
laws. Laws could change to favor Idea Futures too.
* Some credit derivatives pay out if agencies downgrade the credit
rating of a company's debt. This shows that subjective judgements by
established judges can be used to settle bets.
* Governments tend to use prizes less than private patrons. When
science was patronized more by private sources, prizes were used much
more often. Prizes are not infeasible now.
Legal Limits The main immediate limitation to larger scale
demonstrations are the facts that betting is generally illegal, and
that securities are highly regulated.
To get an Idea Futures market approved as a security in the US, you'd
need CFTC approval. But they require expensive review, require you to
set up a physical pit for trading there, and are sure that there is no
point to markets where there is not substantial hedging demand.
(Respected academics can sometimes get exceptions though.)
Betting is illegal in most of the world (including Nevada), with
exceptions carved out over the years by special interests, such as for
horse bets, lotteries, and casinos. Only the UK, to my knowledge,
allows non-sports betting. Some off-shore gambling places are now
soliciting folks citizens to bet with them by phone (e.g.,
1-800-I-CAN-BET) or internet (e.g., Internet Casino). It will be
interesting to see how strongly U.S. police and legislators react to
discourage U.S. citizens using the web to bet in these foreign
markets. See also these discussions of legal issues.
Close, but not enough
* Stocks and bonds are bets on big bundles of ideas: underlying
technology, business strategy, marketing skill, prices of input
factors, market demand, etc. You want to bet on just what you think
you know about.
* Derivatives are usually required to have prices predictable from
the underlying instruments they derive from. Many believe that the
right combination of existing instruments can reproduce any bet, so
new instruments only lower transaction costs. They're wrong.
* Insurance companies can sell arbitrary bets, but only to those
with an "insurable interest".
* Regulators only allow Commodity Futures where someone needs to
insure against big risks.
* British bookies can take any bets, but insist on setting prices
instead of being market-makers. So they won't bet on stuff, like
science, they don't understand.
History I generated this idea in the fall of 1988. See our article
describing some history of the web game and of my involvement with the
idea. I've found several prior publications where others had similar
ideas. I think I've thought the idea through more though.
Critics Here is all the web published criticism of idea futures that I know of.
* Sasha Chislenko long ago offered some friendly criticism, to
which I responded in print.
* I replied to some criticism published in special issue of Social
Epistemology.
* A varitey of informal criticism is found in the if-discuss
archives. See for example comments by Ken Fishkin, Hugh Hoover, and
Peter McCluskey. My replies can be found from those posts.
* Henry See and Michael Century are artists who complain that
since Idea Futures uses numbers, it limits human expressiveness. I
reply.
Robin Hanson rhanson@gmu.edu First version, June 12, 1996
···
On Fri, 9 Jul 2004 07:19:18 +0900, David A. Black <dblack@wobblini.net> wrote:
Hi --
On Fri, 9 Jul 2004, Charles Mills wrote:
>
> On Jul 8, 2004, at 2:25 PM, Martin larsson wrote:
>
> > richard lyman wrote:
> > Wouldn't it be a good idea to make a webform where you can register if
> > you're interested in paying, just to see how many that are willing to
> > sacrifice some money to the ruby-gods?
> Not to be negative, but the cost of registering =~ 0, while actually
> paying is a different story.
>
> > Those who got jobs where they use ruby alot maybe can get the company
> > to send little money each month too.
> Seems like a possibility if a company could write it off as a
> charitable donation.
That's the theory behind Ruby Central, Inc., though as I mentioned
before, the process of getting tax-exempt status is dragging on longer
than we'd hoped so we can't yet offer the charitable write-off
scenario (though we can accept donations and sponsorship for
RubyConf). It's literally down to having to revise entire forms
because we've received a late payment from last year's conference in
the interim... and things like that.
I think actually supporting someone on a full salary would be very
hard or impossible, just because of scale, but I certainly foresee
Ruby Central serving as a kind of clearinghouse for support for
projects (beyond RubyConf, that is) once the tax-exempt status comes
through. (Maybe we're being too pessimistic about people and
companies donating on a non-exempt basis (?), but that's been our
judgement so far.)
In message "Re: speeding ruby development" on 04/07/09, "David A. Black" <dblack@wobblini.net> writes:
I think actually supporting someone on a full salary would be very
hard or impossible, just because of scale, but I certainly foresee
Ruby Central serving as a kind of clearinghouse for support for
projects (beyond RubyConf, that is) once the tax-exempt status comes
through. (Maybe we're being too pessimistic about people and
companies donating on a non-exempt basis (?), but that's been our
judgement so far.)
If it's not too hard, start accepting donation without tax deduction,
just because we, non USA citizens will not get the deduction anyway.
I can donate some for this year's RubyConf, which I can not help by
attending.
>I think actually supporting someone on a full salary would be very
>hard or impossible, just because of scale, but I certainly foresee
>Ruby Central serving as a kind of clearinghouse for support for
>projects (beyond RubyConf, that is) once the tax-exempt status comes
>through. (Maybe we're being too pessimistic about people and
>companies donating on a non-exempt basis (?), but that's been our
>judgement so far.)
If it's not too hard, start accepting donation without tax deduction,
just because we, non USA citizens will not get the deduction anyway.
I can donate some for this year's RubyConf, which I can not help by
attending.
Not hard at all; we're all set up with our PayPal account
(acct@rubycentral.org). I didn't mean to be so informal about
announcing it but I do agree with your point about going ahead, so
there it is.
And if anyone knows of a company that might want to sponsor the
Conference or other activities connected to Ruby development and/or
advocacy, please contact me. We will in fact proceed in slightly more
formal stages as we go, but meanwhile the opportunity is certainly
there.
David
···
On Fri, 9 Jul 2004, Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:
In message "Re: speeding ruby development" > on 04/07/09, "David A. Black" <dblack@wobblini.net> writes:
