Mr. Britt wrote:
A good deal of development time is figuring out where the specs or goals
are wrong or incomplete, and sorting things out. Once I've written
something, in whatever language, porting it over (or simply rewriting
it) almost always goes faster; there's less thinking involved.
Ok, but what about when you want to add new features to an existing
ruby app. What if you're trying to beat your competitors to the
punch? If nothing else, I'd pick ruby simply for the ease in hacking
something together quickly.
Oh, I agree, and this one of the selling points I turn to when encouraging people to use Ruby over, say, Java or PHP. But I try not to make any claims involving direct comparisons. I see if I can stick to describing features inherent to Ruby, with examples.
I, too, have found that one can take a guess at how something is supposed to work and be right most of the time. And I try to convey this impressive regularity and the relative absence of special cases as an essential feature of being productive with Ruby, more so than any app or library.
I'm doomed if I get into a pissing match with an advocate of some other language, as there always seems to be some feature or tool that I know nothing about. I've never used Spring or Hibernate or whatever is cool this week, so I can't tell Java folks that, say, Og/Nitro will be x-times anything for them.
My affection for Ruby, though, is not based on any particular tool, but the language itself and the people who support it.
In the end, people preferring to use Java or PHP or Python or whatever will look at Wee or Nitro or Rails, steal as much as they can, and be better off, and I wish them well. But it's much harder to copy a community and a culture.
James
Hi,
> There's a fine line between promotion and hype, and the Rails hype may
> be counterproductive. I can understand why people get enthusiastic,
> why they want everyone to drink the Rails Kool-Aid; it's great for
> business and all, and it's arguably good for Ruby, but at times it just
> comes off as strident dogma, marketecture buzz, or dust-jacket blurbs.
Yeah. I have been subject to the Rails hype myself and I have found
myself naturally resistant to it.
I have the feeling that Rails is now at the position that Zope was a
few years ago. A lot of excitement, craziness and hype until reality
sets in.
Anyway, don't get me wrong. Rails is probably the opposite of Zope in
many ways, although at the same time it face some of the same issues
that Zope does... memory leaks, upgrading pains... it's all there,
just read this list.
Rails is probably worth evaluating, I just haven't really felt the
need given that I've been very happy with Ruby.
I'm a sinner in trying to promote Rails. Sometimes it may backfire,
mainly when someone only needs an excuse to avoid it. 
It may be clumsy trying to evangelize a technology without being an
expert evangelizer. But there is a vacuum between the "show, do not
tell" that needs to be filled with "tell, do not show".
Fortunately, there are enough technical people to "show" how
everything works, through demos, documentation, examples, tutorials
and answering questions.
Cheers,
Joao
···
On Tue, 22 Mar 2005 13:03:22 +0900, Navindra Umanee <navindra@cs.mcgill.ca> wrote:
James Britt <jamesUNDERBARb@neurogami.com> wrote:
Hi,
>> There's a fine line between promotion and hype, and the Rails hype may
be counterproductive <<
Yes!
The constant hype is what kept me AWAY from Rails for so long!
I just couldn't stomach the constant self-congratulations to it all.
Hype is an overused word sometimes. It's like the overuse of troll,
only because you don't agree with someone else's opinion. IT
professionals and geeks overload and overuse some words too much
sometimes.
I agree that it's better to "show, and don't tell." Or better yet,
keep quiet about it and use it to get _your_ job done, forget about
the others. But some people just can't avoid talking about what
they love, me included.
Cheers,
Joao
···
On Tue, 22 Mar 2005 13:44:52 +0900, CD Baby <cdbaby@gmail.com> wrote:
"why the lucky stiff" <ruby-talk@whytheluckystiff.net> told us:
I just don't want to see us become divided against each other. We have a
strong culture and a common aesthetic. Let's focus on that.
In other news, the Ruby community's strong culture and common aesthetic
makes it 10x more cohesive than comp.lang.X!
Anonymous (-:
Just to be clear, the 10x claim is specifically for web app development
using Ruby on Rails vs web app development using mainstream java frameworks.
I make no such claim for general Ruby vs Java development.
Good point. I was refering to Ruby in general, but really Rails
specifically. I have quite a bit of stuff related to rss and web
services that could easily exist independently of Rails, but it was
all written for the purpose of plugging into it. I still feel more
productive whether I'm working on the independent stuff or if I'm
working on things that are clearly within the domain of Rails. Again,
this is all anecdotal. But I think we'll ultimately find that it's
impossible to escape the anecdotal issue.
···
--
Bob Aman
My affection for Ruby, though, is not based on any particular tool, but
the language itself and the people who support it.
In the end, people preferring to use Java or PHP or Python or whatever
will look at Wee or Nitro or Rails, steal as much as they can, and be
better off, and I wish them well. But it's much harder to copy a
community and a culture.
Ahhh, and this too is huge for me. The java community doesn't have
why or his poignant guide!
···
--
Bob Aman