Bully Boy Ruby…

Posted on February 19, 2008
Filed Under ruby | 1 Comment

I’ve had an uncomfortable week with Ruby. I’ve been reading blogs, articles and excerpts from books. Scanning irc channels and watching videos on what is ruby and where it is going. However, there is a distinct bullying undertone from this new kid on the block and Java is clearly the target. I don’t understand this mentality.

Yes, I find Ruby liberating as programming language. I find that you can express yourself more succinctly in Ruby than you can in Java. Also, the speed at which you can accomplish stuff keeps me wanting to learn how I can get the most from Ruby. However, when you hear Ruby guys bang on about how ‘crap’ Java is and/or ex Java programmers that have found Ruby but do not have a good word to say about Java anymore, its a bit much. Fine, you think Ruby is better Java. No problem there. But to bash Java, to promote Ruby…

Java is still a major player on the server-side. JRuby is a clear indicator of Ruby standing (not crapping) on the shoulder of giants. JRuby is a great way of scripting your Java applications. Just imagine if IBM had made the forward looking decision to use/create JRuby instead of Jython for scripting its WebSphere Application Server Platform. Now there’s a thought…

In my mind, Ruby is not enterprise ready for the masses. In fact, I would also go so far to say that Ruby is not a language that will appeal to the masses in the same way that Java and .NET do today. Only a few days back, I was playing with Ruby and a Java/.NET programmer sitting next to me blurted out, “ugh, what is that?” That my friend, is Ruby! And no, it was not that my code. It is just that Ruby looks obscure to the untrained eye. When I read my first full page of Ruby code, it was daunting. But that goes after a while. Practice and all that. However, I never that feel when I learnt other languages such as Smalltalk, C, Ada, Eiffel, Objective-C, C++, Java or .NET.

Ruby is a sharp tool, for sharp people. What do you think happens when you put sharp tools in the hands of the masses? The Ruby community needs to be on-hand with the bandages to nurse the us through our first painful exposures to Ruby the language and its tools/frameworks. I hope they do this.

Comments

One Response to “Bully Boy Ruby…”

  1. Gigu on February 21st, 2008 11:39 am

    I couldn’t agree with you more. In my opinion Ruby is too flexible and not stable enough. They introduced so many features and now they back off from it (Per-like magical variables and syntax shortcuts). It is not a serious player at enterprise market at the moment and if it will continue it’s way of evolution it will ends up somewhere between PHP and Perl. I’m not interested to much with Ruby community as they seem to be to FANATIC about everything Ruby-related and anti-any-other-language. Silly.
    On the other hand I like Ruby and Rails, I think it’s brilliant.
    Greg

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