Is ruby a viable corporate alternative?

[Mr P]

Our team uses Perl for almost 100% of our projects, as we have for the
past 10 year or so. At that point we broke from the C/C++ herd and
never looked back. Our productivity has been the best in the
corporation since, and we hear nothing but complaints and bad-mouthing
from the Java/C++ cadre since their design and implementations are
typically 5-10X what ours are..

Anyhow- as the team director, I'm always *looking ahead*. Although Perl
is still serving us well, I'm thinking for the benefit of our
developers ( to get more languages in their personal toolkit ) as well
as making productivity improvements through OO design and the ruby
environment, I'm starting to talk up and promote Ruby as the NEXT
language.

This REALLY set off a firestorm from the Java folks, They are already
they are trying to undermine us with comments like:

o you'll never find any developers to support it, there are almost none
in the USA

o you won't like anything that comes out of Japan (this comment from a
country that was conquered by Japan and still harbors a lot of
resentment, so I sort of discounted that comment! )

o its not gaining popularity and will probably die out

o might as well just use Java

.... and so on..

Anyhow, if you all can provide me with websites on Ruby stats vis-a-vis
other languages, trends, successes, etc., I'd like to go into this
battle armed! The break from the herd 10 years ago was very
productive, and my impression is that Ruby would have similar results.

 

[Tom Copeland]

Anyhow, if you all can provide me with websites on Ruby stats

vis-a-vis other languages, trends, successes, etc., I'd like
to go into this battle armed! The break from the herd 10
years ago was very productive, and my impression is that Ruby
would have similar results.

The TIOBE stats are always interesting, and they show Ruby moving up:

http://www.tiobe.com/tpci.htm

Yours,

Tom

 

[Jules]

Maybe you could do a match: one group uses Ruby other group uses Java
and see who gets it's program finished first. Could be fun if you have
time for this

Jules

 

[Robert Klemme]

Our team uses Perl for almost 100% of our projects, as we have for the
past 10 year or so. At that point we broke from the C/C++ herd and
never looked back. Our productivity has been the best in the
corporation since, and we hear nothing but complaints and bad-mouthing
from the Java/C++ cadre since their design and implementations are
typically 5-10X what ours are..
)

Anyhow- as the team director, I'm always *looking ahead*. Although Perl
is still serving us well, I'm thinking for the benefit of our
developers ( to get more languages in their personal toolkit ) as well
as making productivity improvements through OO design and the ruby
environment, I'm starting to talk up and promote Ruby as the NEXT
language.

This REALLY set off a firestorm from the Java folks, They are already
they are trying to undermine us with comments like:

Maybe they are sensing that they are behind the Perk camp already and
fear looking even worse compared to a well trained Ruby group. Or will
they be forced to learn Ruby, too?

o you'll never find any developers to support it, there are almost none
in the USA

I believe this is nonsense although I do not have statistics to prove
it. From reading here I would guess though that there are plenty out
there - and increasing.

o you won't like anything that comes out of Japan (this comment from a
country that was conquered by Japan and still harbors a lot of
resentment, so I sort of discounted that comment! )

Yeah, complete rubbish!

o its not gaining popularity and will probably die out

Actually traffic in this group has significantly increased over the past
years and RoR is only adding to the momentum. Maybe do a search on any
of the archives for a month these days and two years ago. I'd expect to
see a significant raise.

o might as well just use Java

Um, I don't know what you are actually doing but as a general statement
this is rather meek. You can be quite productive with Java if you have
a decent IDE (which can be obtained for free) but you are likely more
productive with Ruby (assuming similar training and expertise). Java
has certainly an edge for performance critical tasks.

Ironically there are activities going on to make Ruby execute on a JVM -
so they could actually have the best of both worlds.

... and so on..

Anyhow, if you all can provide me with websites on Ruby stats vis-a-vis
other languages, trends, successes, etc., I'd like to go into this
battle armed! The break from the herd 10 years ago was very
productive, and my impression is that Ruby would have similar results.

Someone posted a link to a site that shows programming language
popularity statistics some weeks ago. Maybe you can dig that up again.

Good luck! If they don't believe you send them here.

Kind regards

robert

 

[Rob Biedenharn]

Our team uses Perl for almost 100% of our projects, as we have for the
past 10 year or so. At that point we broke from the C/C++ herd and
never looked back. Our productivity has been the best in the
corporation since, and we hear nothing but complaints and bad-mouthing
from the Java/C++ cadre since their design and implementations are
typically 5-10X what ours are..

Anyhow- as the team director, I'm always *looking ahead*. Although
Perl
is still serving us well, I'm thinking for the benefit of our
developers ( to get more languages in their personal toolkit ) as well
as making productivity improvements through OO design and the ruby
environment, I'm starting to talk up and promote Ruby as the NEXT
language.

This REALLY set off a firestorm from the Java folks, They are already
they are trying to undermine us with comments like:

o you'll never find any developers to support it, there are almost
none
in the USA

I'd point to the 300+ that actually made it out to the RubyConf in
Denver as just an example of how silly this argument is (and how many
are subscribed to this list as another...)

o you won't like anything that comes out of Japan (this comment from a
country that was conquered by Japan and still harbors a lot of
resentment, so I sort of discounted that comment! )

o its not gaining popularity and will probably die out
HA!

o might as well just use Java

It has been commented (at least quoted by someone at RubyConf) that
there is a surprisingly small overlap between the libraries available
for Java and for Ruby -- they have tended to be used to solve
different problems. Depending on the problem space, you might
propose a contest between Ruby and Java. If you would have used
Perl, then you can certainly use Ruby (there's even a close match in
command-line options on the interpreter between these two). I've
used Perl for many years and quite heavily the past 16months, I've
been using Ruby mainly in the context of Rails, but have been
'forcing' myself to use Ruby for the same kind of "little" tasks that
I used for my introduction to Perl years ago. (Except this time I'm
replacing Perl most of the time instead of awk/grep/sed.)

... and so on..

Anyhow, if you all can provide me with websites on Ruby stats vis-a-
vis
other languages, trends, successes, etc., I'd like to go into this
battle armed! The break from the herd 10 years ago was very
productive, and my impression is that Ruby would have similar results.

If your team accepts Perl, there's no reason that you couldn't start
using Ruby right away. Assuming that the team understands object-
oriented programming (even the way it's done in Perl ;-), the
transition should be an easy one.

-Rob


Rob Biedenharn http://agileconsultingllc.com
(e-mail address removed)

 

[pat eyler]

This REALLY set off a firestorm from the Java folks, They are already
they are trying to undermine us with comments like:

I'm not going to tell you that Ruby *is* the right language for you, you're
far better prepared to make that determination. If Perl fits your needs
well, I think Ruby is likely to be a good fit and a positive move -- but
that's just my experience.

o you'll never find any developers to support it, there are almost none
in the USA

I'm not sure where you are, but:
Seattle.rb has 100+ subscribers on the mailing list. Amazon is using
Ruby internally, and many other local companies are too.
URUG (the umbrella group for Utah based Ruby brigades), has three
active groups and a fourth forming. The active groups have a regular
attendance of 10+per month each. We regularly get recruiters to sponsor
meetings and there are frequent posts to out mailing list looking for more
Ruby and RoR hackers (from a number of companies).
NYC.rb has a regular monthly attendance of over 40 and is working
to put together a regional conference in the Spring.
There are active Ruby groups in Pittsburgh, Oklahoma City, New Haven,
Boston, San Diego, Missoula, Boise, St. Louise, Portland, Minneapolis,
Columbus, Washington D.C., Denver, Dallas, Phoenix, and many more.
The Ruby book market in the US is exploding. There are *eight* books
that I know of that are do to be published between now and the end of
Q1 2007 -- and this is on top of the already large collection.

o you won't like anything that comes out of Japan (this comment from a
country that was conquered by Japan and still harbors a lot of
resentment, so I sort of discounted that comment! )

This isn't even worth responding too.

o its not gaining popularity and will probably die out

Ha! see the books comment above. Add to it the numbers that Tim
O'Reilly throws out every quarter on the Radar O'Reilly blog. Check out
TIOBE (as Tom Copland mentioned). The One Click Installer has gone
over 1 million downloads. Ruby is gaining momentum, and quickly!

o might as well just use Java

A number of Java folks are turning to Ruby as a great tool. Sun is
helping put Ruby on the JVM (and paying to full-time engineers to
do so). Saying you might as well use Java is kind of like driving
an RV to do your shopping instead of taking the family car. It'll work,
but it's overkill (and a huge waste of resources).

... and so on..

. . and so on. ;^)

Anyhow, if you all can provide me with websites on Ruby stats vis-a-vis
other languages, trends, successes, etc., I'd like to go into this
battle armed! The break from the herd 10 years ago was very
productive, and my impression is that Ruby would have similar results.

If Dynamic Languages fit your problem space, Ruby can be a wonderful
tool for you -- and it's a cool community to belong to.

 

[Dave Rose]

...i realy recommend you read 'from jave to ruby' by bruce tate...and
come to the erubyconf in columbus,ohio..to meet him and discuss your
situation with bruce..registartion is this fri 12/1/2006..in our small
shop we started very small..and are now tackling bigger jobs as we have
more success....

 

[Sammy Larbi]

Jules wrote, On 11/28/2006 10:30 AM:

Maybe you could do a match: one group uses Ruby other group uses Java
and see who gets it's program finished first. Could be fun if you have
time for this

Jules

Except for the folks using Java. =)

 

[Li Chen]

NYC.rb has a regular monthly attendance of over 40 and is working
to put together a regional conference in the Spring.
There are active Ruby groups in Pittsburgh, Oklahoma City, New Haven,
Boston, San Diego, Missoula, Boise, St. Louise, Portland, Minneapolis,
Columbus,

What is the name for the one in Columbus?

Li

 

[pat eyler]

What is the name for the one in Columbus?

the columbus.rb
http://www.columbusrb.com/

 

[Guido Sohne]

I would say Ruby is a viable corporate alternative. It has cut down my
development time by a factor of ten, for web services and web apps
(using Rails). I would not like to touch Java again.

Your Java/C++ cadre are probably the late adopters who said the same
thing about Java when it came out. I would try to not let them hold me
back ... Java's 'strong' point now I would say is in web apps, that's
where I seem to see it being used most AFAICT.

Linux Journal just gave their Editor's Choice (from another thread on
this list) to Rails for web app framework and to Ruby for language.

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9368

I think the trick is to get into stuff early but not *too* early - and
to ignore the laggards since they will always be there, any way. If
they want to write huge amounts of code, that's fine with me, but
hopefully they are on their own team and can slog as much as they want
while wiser people save time and finish early.

-- G.

 

[gregarican]

the columbus.rb
http://www.columbusrb.com/

Interesting. I live in Columbus, Ohio and didn't realize there was a
Ruby user's group here. I should try to find the time and make one of
the meetings. I've been using Ruby for 2 years now for The Diamond
Cellar (http://www.diamondcellar.com) and have had the chance to build
a couple of in-house GUI apps (a mobile CRM app and an employee survey
app), a Rails order management system, and lots of admin scripts. I'd
be interested in hearing how other folks leverage Ruby...

 

[dblack]

Hi --

Interesting. I live in Columbus, Ohio and didn't realize there was a
Ruby user's group here.

Not only that; you've also got a conference coming up:
http://erubycon.com/


David

--
David A. Black | (e-mail address removed)
Author of "Ruby for Rails" [1] | Ruby/Rails training & consultancy [3]
DABlog (DAB's Weblog) [2] | Co-director, Ruby Central, Inc. [4]
[1] http://www.manning.com/black | [3] http://www.rubypowerandlight.com
[2] http://dablog.rubypal.com | [4] http://www.rubycentral.org

 

[Ken Bloom]

Our team uses Perl for almost 100% of our projects, as we have for the
past 10 year or so. At that point we broke from the C/C++ herd and
never looked back. Our productivity has been the best in the
corporation since, and we hear nothing but complaints and bad-mouthing
from the Java/C++ cadre since their design and implementations are
typically 5-10X what ours are..

Anyhow- as the team director, I'm always *looking ahead*. Although Perl
is still serving us well, I'm thinking for the benefit of our
developers ( to get more languages in their personal toolkit ) as well
as making productivity improvements through OO design and the ruby
environment, I'm starting to talk up and promote Ruby as the NEXT
language.

This REALLY set off a firestorm from the Java folks, They are already
they are trying to undermine us with comments like:

o you'll never find any developers to support it, there are almost none
in the USA

o you won't like anything that comes out of Japan (this comment from a
country that was conquered by Japan and still harbors a lot of
resentment, so I sort of discounted that comment! )

o its not gaining popularity and will probably die out

I can't really answer any of these specific concerns, but I can say that I
think Java is a pain in the butt to program, owing to various kinds of
inconsistent semantics (e.g. the dichotomy between arrays and
Collections). C++, as much as everyone thinks it's a worse
language, is nonetheless easier to program, and I absolutely love
Ruby.

--Ken

 

[Ken Bloom]

Our team uses Perl for almost 100% of our projects, as we have for the
past 10 year or so. At that point we broke from the C/C++ herd and
never looked back. Our productivity has been the best in the
corporation since, and we hear nothing but complaints and bad-mouthing
from the Java/C++ cadre since their design and implementations are
typically 5-10X what ours are..

Consider yourself warned that Ruby doesn't have any native compiler (like
perlcc for perl) or bytecode compiler, so if you're releasing your code
to the world, you have no practical way to protect your investment (yet).

--Ken

 

[Andrew Stewart]

This REALLY set off a firestorm from the Java folks, They are already
they are trying to undermine us with comments like:

o might as well just use Java

... and so on..

Anyhow, if you all can provide me with websites on Ruby stats vis-a-
vis
other languages, trends, successes, etc., I'd like to go into this
battle armed! The break from the herd 10 years ago was very
productive, and my impression is that Ruby would have similar results.

Some anecdotal evidence: as of RailsConf 2006, 65% of the 20 No Fluff
Just Stuff speakers (Java gurus) were making their living from Ruby
on Rails instead. Some names that your Java colleagues may recognise
(apologies to anyone who feels left out are:

- Dave Thomas (Pragmatic Programmers)
- James Duncan Davidson (Ant, Tomcat, Servlet API)
- Mike Clark (testing enthusiast)
- Tom Copeland (PMD)

Regards,
Andy Stewart

 

[Richard Conroy]

I am not sure what you mean by *corporate* alternative, that term in
my mind suggests internal applications to an enterprise.

One area that Ruby is going to have trouble with is on Windows. Ruby is a great
experience on Unix & Mac environments, but it can get pretty clunky on windows.
For GUI-based applications you can have some byzantine install procedures
(the GUI admin client installation for SQLite takes the piss).

Rails on Linux massively outperforms Rails on Windows, thats probably not a huge
deal, but the support ecology is biased towards Unix environments - don't expect
the plugins and libraries to always have windows equivalents or the
windows equivalents
may be less mature or less well tested (not enough eyes). Often you simply have
less options as a developer when you are shipping on a windows platform (like
no Capistrano).

Ruby is a great language but if windows development is of primary
interest to you,
you will have to curtail your ambitions or research the problem thoroughly.

 

[Brad Tilley]

Ruby is a great language but if windows development is of primary interest to

you, >you will have to curtail your ambitions or research the problem
thoroughly.

This has been my experience as well. Windows support is improving, but it's not
as good as some other open source/free scripting languages (Python and Perl).
Having said that, you can still do a lot with Ruby on Windows (especially
systems stuff). I wrote this in Ruby on Windows, it's not a very good example,
but it's very Windows specific:

http://filebox.vt.edu/users/rtilley/public/svc_tag/svc_tag.html

When I have to muck around with security descriptors or other more complex
windows specific stuff, I general use Python when Ruby cannot do the task as
easily.

Just my 2 cents,

Brad

 

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

you, >you will have to curtail your ambitions or research the problem
thoroughly.

This has been my experience as well. Windows support is improving, but it's not
as good as some other open source/free scripting languages (Python and Perl).

Are you referring to ActiveState when you mean "Windows support?"

 

[Brad Tilley]

Are you referring to ActiveState when you mean "Windows support?"

No. Things like Mark Hammonds win32 packages for Python that add a huge amount
of Windows specific functionality: http://sourceforge.net/projects/pywin32/

I think Daniel Berger and some others are working on a lot of win32 specific
stuff for Ruby that may one day be comparable to that:
http://rubyforge.org/projects/win32utils/

Also, simple things like having an MSI based installer for large scale
installations (install across an entire domain for example).