Zed Shaw - Ruby has dodged a bullet

ruby-talk
21

> I liked the Ruby community better when it placed more emphasis on code
> and less on personalities.

Ruby was around before USENET??

This is the first part of this thread that's brought a smile to my face. Thanks
Jay.

···

On Jan 1, 2008 5:00 PM, Jay Levitt <jay+news@jay.fm> wrote:

On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 23:09:39 -0500, James Britt wrote:

--
Jay Levitt |
Boston, MA | My character doesn't like it when they
Faster: jay at jay dot fm | cry or shout or hit.
http://www.jay.fm | - Kristoffer

--
thanks,
-pate
-------------------------
   Duty makes us do things, Love make us do things well.
http://on-ruby.blogspot.com http://on-erlang.blogspot.com
          http://on-soccer.blogspot.com

22

almost killed this thread - glad i didn't now. touche.

a @ http://codeforpeople.com/

···

On Jan 1, 2008, at 5:00 PM, Jay Levitt wrote:

Ruby was around before USENET??

--
we can deny everything, except that we have the possibility of being better. simply reflect on that.
h.h. the 14th dalai lama

23

Jay Levitt wrote:

···

On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 23:09:39 -0500, James Britt wrote:

I liked the Ruby community better when it placed more emphasis on code and less on personalities.

Ruby was around before USENET??

You may have a different recollection of ruby-talk of a few years ago than I.

What struck me was how much it was unlike other lists.

--
James Britt

"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge."
  - D. Boorstin

24

Eh, I think that's a bit extreme. Show me another programming language
community where you can have long meaningful discussions about the
semantics of language constructs and ideas for improvement and so on,
and also ask how to split a string every n characters, and get the
same kind friendly, helpful replies in either case. Even when folks
bump heads, it's usually done in a respectful way. The social dynamic
of the ruby community makes you want to plant trees and recycle and
group hug. And that counter-acts global warming. :slight_smile:

Regards,
Jordan

···

On Jan 1, 1:07 pm, WesR <wes.ris...@gartner.com> wrote:

On Dec 31 2007, 8:09 pm, James Britt <james.br...@gmail.com> wrote:
...

> I liked the Ruby community better when it placed more emphasis on code
> and less on personalities.

Here, here!

My own introduction to the sociology of Ruby was an episode where some
individual thought that the wording of my question was a slight to
Ruby, comparing it to Python, and attempted to start a long rant
thread.

Fortunately, wiser heads simply answered my question with facts and
suggestions, and I got my task done.

OTOH, I suppose those that there are two communities that need to be
served as well the very task-oriented folks.

Perhaps we could have

comp.language.ruby.evaluation

for those that want to compare notes on what makes Ruby better or
worse than other language and, indeed, what are the definitions of
better or worse?

comp.language.ruby.preach_to_the_choir

for those take emotional sustenance from participation in the
community and want to co-sustain.

25

Marc Heiler wrote:

  'I don’t want to be a “Ruby guy” anymore, and will probably start getting into more Python, Factor, and Lua in the coming months'

And to me this sounds as if he hates Ruby as language, but without giving any concrete evidence what he dislikes about ruby as language.

Well, just about the whole blog is about Rails, but:
http://rubyisnotrails.com/

Some time ago, I was evaluating Zed's "Profligacy" as a framework for Swing (in JRuby). However, although his technical solution was quite ok, I decided not to use it in my project based on his extremely hostile tone towards fellow programmers on the web pages. (My impression was that if I would get into trouble along the way, I would probably be stuck forever.) And now with this new blog of his, the counts for words like "idiot", "dumb", "moron", etc just confirms that fact.

If Ruby was very much designed to make the programmer feel good (which I personally feel to be very much the case, my eyes opened by Giles' excellent blog post at http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2007/11/why-i-program-in-ruby-and-maybe-why-you.html\), Zed clearly needs 2 new languages (one for the computer world one for the real world). IMHO.

Happy New Year to Matz and the whole Ruby community! Thanks for a great language!

Best regards,

Jari Williamsson

26

Robert Dober wrote:
> Short and pittyless: I hate the arrogancy (but very often there are
> reasons for such things) of the guy, but would always consider
> coperation with him. I *believe* that he has written stupid things,
> ok, who has never? Do not even look at me but if you are I can prove
> the contrary easily . . .
> It is sad that he left the community and it is sad that he has
> problems of finding a job, can we afford to lose such brilliant a
> mind? I do not believe so, but our society does, what could one add?
> Good luck Zed...

1. Well ... there are a lot of Ruby and Rails books on the market. But
there are a lot *more* books on how to deal with "difficult" people.
Francis' point is valid. Behavior like Zed's is unacceptable. It is
grounds for immediate dismissal in every organization I've ever been a
part of, and always will be. Behavior of that kind drives productive
people away.

2. Can we afford to lose such a brilliant mind? First of all, since this
is a "community" and not an "organization", I don't think there's a
notion of "loss" here. That is, we couldn't really have kicked him out
if we had somehow "met and decided that he should be expelled." So yes,
if we have indeed "lost" Zed Shaw, I think we can afford it. There are
lots of brilliant people who are easy to work with, although anyone can
be pushed to the limit.

I honor your POV and will never argue that mine is more correct,
especially as you express it with great respect, allow me however to
be clearer than I was - my fault. I was not thinking about us but
society in general, your reasoning might still be valid though of
course.

Cheers
Robert

3. I also want to say something about programming and behavior a little
more generic than just Ruby, Rails and Zed Shaw. Decades ago Gerald
Weinberg wrote a book, _The Psychology of Computer Programming_. Bear in
mind that this book was written in a day and age when programmers were a
scarce resource. I just checked Amazon and the book is still in print,
and the Amazon page links to Weinberg's blog if you're interested. The
point is that:

a. The psychology of programmers is different from that of some (but not
all) other professionals, and
b. There are enough good programmers that one in general does *not* need
to tolerate unacceptable behavior. That was not always the case.

One should never tolerate inacceptable behavior but are there not
other ways to deal with it than 0/1?
Well my hypothesis and more so John´s was that "intolerable" behaviour
is sometimes caused by problems we might face all once in a while and
therfore nobody should throw the first stone, if you feel however that
it is regular behaviour you are of course 100% right.
But you said it yourself, this is not the place to judge people, voila
why I took the role of the Advocatus Diaboli.

Cheers
Robert

···

On Jan 1, 2008 8:35 PM, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky <znmeb@cesmail.net> wrote:
--

http://ruby-smalltalk.blogspot.com/

---
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second,
it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Schopenhauer (attr.)

27

"don't want to be a 'ruby guy'" doesn't mean he hates the language. he
just hate being labeled like that.

In my case I don't hate but really piss me off that every time I try
to get feedback on proper support for Windows (which I professionally
use), get silly answers like "hey, move to a real OS".

I don't insult your OS choice, whatever distro of Linux you're using,
nor even critize users using OSX and telling us that's the OS every
developer should be using. Come on guys, di-ver-si-ty.

Also, underneath that "angry filled post" there is some logic. If
you're a freelance developer, you should have feld that sometime, the
anxiety of job to put food on your table (and pay the bills), but
there is a also the need of recognition from your employers and your
peers, and not being used just for your name.

Have a nice year!

···

On 1 ene, 08:23, Marc Heiler <sheve...@linuxmail.org> wrote:

  "Like Zed, we all have some differences with other users in the
  "community. Zed didn't stab all the members of it, nor Ruby nor Rails,
  "but lot of folks must agree that Rails is becoming the next Java."

Well he wrote:

  'I don't want to be a "Ruby guy" anymore, and will probably start
getting into more Python, Factor, and Lua in the coming months'

And to me this sounds as if he hates Ruby as language, but without
giving any concrete evidence what he dislikes about ruby as language.

--
Luis Lavena

28

Robert Dober wrote:
> Short and pittyless: I hate the arrogancy (but very often there are
> reasons for such things) of the guy, but would always consider
> coperation with him. I *believe* that he has written stupid things,
> ok, who has never? Do not even look at me but if you are I can prove
> the contrary easily . . .
> It is sad that he left the community and it is sad that he has
> problems of finding a job, can we afford to lose such brilliant a
> mind? I do not believe so, but our society does, what could one add?
> Good luck Zed...

1. Well ... there are a lot of Ruby and Rails books on the market. But
there are a lot *more* books on how to deal with "difficult" people.
Francis' point is valid. Behavior like Zed's is unacceptable. It is
grounds for immediate dismissal in every organization I've ever been a
part of, and always will be. Behavior of that kind drives productive
people away.

True, but I think we need the occasional fringe behavior in any community.

2. Can we afford to lose such a brilliant mind? First of all, since this
is a "community" and not an "organization", I don't think there's a
notion of "loss" here. That is, we couldn't really have kicked him out
if we had somehow "met and decided that he should be expelled." So yes,
if we have indeed "lost" Zed Shaw, I think we can afford it. There are
lots of brilliant people who are easy to work with, although anyone can
be pushed to the limit.

From a business perspective, I agree.

3. I also want to say something about programming and behavior a little
more generic than just Ruby, Rails and Zed Shaw. Decades ago Gerald
Weinberg wrote a book, _The Psychology of Computer Programming_. Bear in
mind that this book was written in a day and age when programmers were a
scarce resource. I just checked Amazon and the book is still in print,
and the Amazon page links to Weinberg's blog if you're interested. The
point is that:

a. The psychology of programmers is different from that of some (but not
all) other professionals, and
b. There are enough good programmers that one in general does *not* need
to tolerate unacceptable behavior. That was not always the case.

>> I can understand the fascination of watching an otherwise-intelligent person
>> commit career-suicide by way of an embarrassing and tasteless rant. But the
>> Ruby community will survive being kissed off by Zed Shaw.

I know of a lot of very smart people that would hire the person for
precisely his use of foul language and bad attitude.

The only thing I don't like about that blog, though, is the focus on
people who use Rails and how evil/idiotic they must be. But, I just
think that sociologically, a scaffold (Rails) that allows people to do
things when they really _don't_ know how to do things can be
frustrating for some coders.

Todd

···

On Jan 1, 2008 1:35 PM, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky <znmeb@cesmail.net> wrote:

29

No, you're right; I was being flip, but I notice it when I look in the
archives. OTOH, I also notice it now, at least compared to, er, some other
similar lists.

We're nice because Matz is nice.

Some of the frameworks built on Ruby have communities of young, VC-funded
brilliant hotshots. Having been a young, VC-funded brilliant hotshot, I
can tell you that the impulse to act like a rock star - with the
mind-blowing concert, the hotel-room trashing, and the "don't you know who
I am" - is huge. Especially when everyone calls you a rock star.

I'm dangling my legs in two pools at the moment; I try to keep up with
computing, and I also try to attend Berklee. Which is, in fact, chock full
of next year's rock stars. Only they're not rock stars yet. There are no
cliques in that school; there are no rappers dissing other rappers, or rock
stars making bold philosophical statements (other than when they get high
after class). Nobody spends any time criticizing someone else's fretboard
technique. It's all about the music, and about learning from each other.

In five years, a bunch of them will be famous, and maybe one or two will
start acting like a big famous rock star. People will pay attention, and
give them a platform, and they'll stop talking about what they learn, and
they'll start talking about what they KNOW. Then they'll decide that they
know a lot about a lot more than music. Eventually, you get Toby Keith
giving foreign policy lessons. (Toby Keith did not go to Berklee.)

Programmers are worse, because on average, we have even fewer social skills
than musicials. (Which is pretty impressive, if you've ever hung out with
a few thousand musicians.) And we don't have to wait for the press to
build us a platform; we literally build our own. So we can turn
*ourselves* into rock stars.

One thing that gets forgotten sometimes, when you become a rock star - and
I'm not talking about Zed, I'm talking about the rock-star-as-pundit
philosophy in general:

Tiger Woods takes golf lessons every week.

My voice teacher, who you have all heard on Domino's and Pillsbury
commercials, has a voice teacher. His voice teacher has a voice teacher.
All the greats spend all their lives studying and jamming with the other
greats.

I myself have a big ego from time to time. (Usually from the time I wake
up to the time I go to bed.) But I know enough to know that I can't start
teaching people what I *know*, because I don't *know* anything. All I have
is a bunch of useful metaphors that I've learned. I can tell people about
what I learned lately. Maybe they'll find them useful too.

I think I've drifted off topic here, but in my defense, it's Wednesday.

···

On Wed, 2 Jan 2008 01:38:47 -0500, James Britt wrote:

You may have a different recollection of ruby-talk of a few years ago
than I.

--
Jay Levitt |
Boston, MA | My character doesn't like it when they
Faster: jay at jay dot fm | cry or shout or hit.
http://www.jay.fm | - Kristoffer

30

1. Rebol is slow. It was pretty much the slowest thing in the Alioth
shootout the last time I ran the analysis.

This from a rubyist? :slight_smile:

2.The problem I have with Factor is that it's so close to Forth that I
don't see any advantage in learning it, since I already know (and love)
ANS Forth.

Fair point. Since I don't know any forth dialect, I figured I'd invest
in one that's being done from scratch (both for the excitement and for
the fact that it won't have accumulated historical cruft).

martin

···

On Jan 1, 2008 11:59 PM, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky <znmeb@cesmail.net> wrote:

31

Oh give Zed a break. He's an excellent programmer. He's not gentle or ginger with words and never has been. Some of that his also his sense of humor and exaggeration. BUT, I can totally understand where he's coming from dealing with web developers and web development companies. I believe he's aiming to much of that anger at Rails because of the people he's dealt with.
Among web developers, there are lots of them with big egos, self importance, going only for the gold with no pride in what they're building or real confidence in coding. Many web dev companies and their leaders just have absolutely zero sense of loyalty or ethics and will screw people at the drop of a hat AFTER making promises and schedules they could never keep.
And the half-baked, hair-brain ideas for web sites? Oh yeah, there are lots of those Rails projects. There are lots with PHP too.

Zed is not wrong, except to blame Ruby or Rails for the problem. What he says about Rails being a big "lie", well there may be some truth to that... But clearly Zed was able to build a heck of a good thing with Mongrel...so he does know a thing or two about that!

I can understand the allure of the Python community for him. Python web frameworks do tend to be used by companies and groups that are very clear about why they're using a particular technology and pretty well-grounded in reality. We all know that Rails' hype sometimes can be annoying.

Sounds like Zed just wants to do interesting programming and get rewarded for it, not just well paid, but treated like a human being without junior high school drama. Seems reasonable, but often difficult to achieve.

Personally, I think Zed is a funny guy. I think I get his humor. But I also hope he continues to develop good stuff in Ruby and realizes that it is largely just the bad side of the culture of the web development world that got to him.

Zed, get away from the web sites, do something without web stuff!

32

But you said it yourself, this is not the place to judge people, voila

ERRATUM: That was James, oh my bad
R.

33

Off Topic: I really do think OCI's use of VC6 is a big factor in this.
Not only do I have to buy VMWare, a copy of Windows, and go through
*hours* of inconvenience, but I have to dig up some compiler that's no
longer offered or supported when MS offers free alternatives for
download (VCExpress)... It's really frustrating. Not directed at you
of course Luis. Appreciate your hard work at bridging the gap. :slight_smile:

···

On Jan 1, 7:46 pm, Luis Lavena <luislav...@gmail.com> wrote:

In my case I don't hate but really piss me off that every time I try
to get feedback on proper support for Windows (which I professionally
use), get silly answers like "hey, move to a real OS".

34

Jari Williamsson kirjoitti:

If Ruby was very much designed to make the programmer feel good (which I personally feel to be very much the case, my eyes opened by Giles' excellent blog post at http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2007/11/why-i-program-in-ruby-and-maybe-why-you.html\), Zed clearly needs 2 new languages (one for the computer world one for the real world). IMHO.

Well... Given that Giles there is one of those 'good coders' who snipe at people who he sees as inferior coders... I must say you are on the wrong track Jari. Tahvoja ne on molemmat

I say Go Zed! Tell it like it is! 8)

My perceptions are similar to his in regards to these strange better-thab-thou-ex-php-wanna-be-coder-characters accumulating around the Rails. And its time to ditch the (ruby-)rose-colored glasses that seem to have been falling on peoples eyes in regard to anything Ruby-related.

Sometimes it seems to me almost ALL rails 'experts' I meet or have any kind of dialogue with JUST CAN'T WRITE GOOD CODE. Or know it when they see some. They make snide comments in order to hide their poor skills etc. *puts a leash on forthcoming rant*

And I am not even CS person, just an artist whose life is on "The Web." But I like coding. And code. I must say I have NO idea about rails code/deployment/maintaining qualities, Ive only used Heroku.

It seems to me the Rails community really has some self-studying to do.

Happy New Year to Matz and the whole Ruby community! Thanks for a great language!

Yes! Ruby is sweet like sweet red grapefruits and I hope all your 2008 is sweet too!

Csmr

35

ROFL.

-Thufir

···

On Wed, 02 Jan 2008 19:54:58 +0900, Jay Levitt wrote:

I think I've drifted off topic here, but in my defense, it's Wednesday.

36

Martin DeMello wrote:

1. Rebol is slow. It was pretty much the slowest thing in the Alioth
shootout the last time I ran the analysis.

This from a rubyist? :slight_smile:

I guess you haven't seen my RubyConf 2007 paper. Rebol is slower than
Ruby ... a *lot* slower.

2.The problem I have with Factor is that it's so close to Forth that I
don't see any advantage in learning it, since I already know (and love)
ANS Forth.

Fair point. Since I don't know any forth dialect, I figured I'd invest
in one that's being done from scratch (both for the excitement and for
the fact that it won't have accumulated historical cruft).

Yeah ... I buzzed by the Factor web site again. Slava has attempted to
merge Forth and Lisp concepts into a new language, even though it looks
more like Forth on paper. The one thing that struck me about that
concept is that the "native" programming language of the Hewlett-Packard
HP-28, HP-48 and HP-49 is something called RPL, which stands for Reverse
Polish Lisp.

RPL looks much like Forth, but I think it's a much more elegant language
than Forth. Built in data types, in addition to real and complex
numbers, include strings, algebraic expressions, binary constants,
matrices and "programs". IIRC it is recursive as well; it definitely has
a functionality equivalent to "lambda". But HP has always considered it
a dialect of Lisp, not a dialect of Forth.

···

On Jan 1, 2008 11:59 PM, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky <znmeb@cesmail.net> wrote:

37

Jay Levitt wrote:

Tiger Woods takes golf lessons every week.

My voice teacher, who you have all heard on Domino's and Pillsbury
commercials, has a voice teacher. His voice teacher has a voice teacher.
All the greats spend all their lives studying and jamming with the other
greats.

OTOH (and OT), Nicolo Paganini, arguably the first rock star, gave up practicing the violin in between his pyrotechnic concerts.

Or so the story goes, but then there's also a story about some kind of deal with the Prince of Darkness....

···

--
       vjoel : Joel VanderWerf : path berkeley edu : 510 665 3407

38

I know of a lot of very smart people that would hire the person for
precisely his use of foul language and bad attitude.

Hey here, Hire Me I can do that, really!!!! :wink:

The only thing I don't like about that blog, though, is the focus on
people who use Rails and how evil/idiotic they must be. But, I just
think that sociologically, a scaffold (Rails) that allows people to do
things when they really _don't_ know how to do things can be
frustrating for some coders.

Oh I find it horrifying, interesting point to see if this was a valid
point for abstraction or not.
I had the instant feeling it was not and pushing people to bad design
but I am an ignorant of the structures
of large Web applications ( having written one not so small in LAMP
myself long time ago) and therefore cannot say anything about it...

Todd

Robert

···

On Jan 2, 2008 6:12 AM, Todd Benson <caduceass@gmail.com> wrote:

--
http://ruby-smalltalk.blogspot.com/

---
Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

39

Jay Levitt wrote:

I'm dangling my legs in two pools at the moment; I try to keep up with
computing, and I also try to attend Berklee. Which is, in fact, chock
full of next year's rock stars. Only they're not rock stars yet. There are
no cliques in that school; there are no rappers dissing other rappers, or
rock stars making bold philosophical statements (other than when they get
high after class). Nobody spends any time criticizing someone else's
fretboard technique. It's all about the music, and about learning from each
other.

This is an interesting comparison because I'm not at all a musician but
I live in Portland, Oregon, one center of Indy Rock. I'm sure the
Berklee students have a good shot at stardom after school, some of our
self-taught rockers will famous soon as well. But with the Indy Scene,
the star posturing starts much earlier.

What interesting about this is that communities do matter. Some nurture
ego and some don't nurture it as much.

We should each keep in mind what behavior we're nurturing.

Joe Solbrig

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

40

Oh give Zed a break. He's an excellent programmer. He's not gentle or
ginger with words and never has been. Some of that his also his sense
of humor and exaggeration. BUT, I can totally understand where he's
coming from dealing with web developers and web development
companies. I believe he's aiming to much of that anger at Rails
because of the people he's dealt with.
Among web developers, there are lots of them with big egos, self
importance, going only for the gold with no pride in what they're
building or real confidence in coding. Many web dev companies and
their leaders just have absolutely zero sense of loyalty or ethics
and will screw people at the drop of a hat AFTER making promises and
schedules they could never keep.
And the half-baked, hair-brain ideas for web sites? Oh yeah, there
are lots of those Rails projects. There are lots with PHP too.

Zed is not wrong, except to blame Ruby or Rails for the problem. What
he says about Rails being a big "lie", well there may be some truth
to that... But clearly Zed was able to build a heck of a good thing
with Mongrel...so he does know a thing or two about that!

I can understand the allure of the Python community for him. Python
web frameworks do tend to be used by companies and groups that are
very clear about why they're using a particular technology and pretty
well-grounded in reality. We all know that Rails' hype sometimes can
be annoying.

Sounds like Zed just wants to do interesting programming and get
rewarded for it, not just well paid, but treated like a human being
without junior high school drama. Seems reasonable, but often
difficult to achieve.

Sorry for repeating myself but you put soo much better what I wanted
to say earlier.
Big thumbs up John.

Personally, I think Zed is a funny guy. I think I get his humor. But
I also hope he continues to develop good stuff in Ruby and realizes
that it is largely just the bad side of the culture of the web
development world that got to him.

Zed, get away from the web sites, do something without web stuff!

An interesting advice, but I am afraid that the problems you have
described earlier are generalized :frowning:

Cheers
Robert

···

On Jan 1, 2008 4:12 PM, John Joyce <dangerwillrobinsondanger@gmail.com> wrote:
--

http://ruby-smalltalk.blogspot.com/

---
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second,
it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Schopenhauer (attr.)