removing Ruby success stories page from Ruby-lang.org

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

You've obviously never worked in some of the places I've had to... =/

I don't think I've ever been in a place where management left me be
because they thought I knew what was better. Regardless of their
breadth of knowledge, they were willing to pay for what they knew, not
what I thought was best.

That's a pretty narrow view of how managers and employees (or customers
and contractors) relate as people within an organization. There's an
awful lot of literature about this, some good and some bad, and one can
choose to take a cynical view or one can choose to learn the better
ways. My point is that *you* choose your attitude -- it is *not* defined
for you by anyone else.

Then how do we get better? How do we gain applicable, real-world
programming skills if we never step out and say, "I'm going to use
this for something meaningful"?

Meaningful to whom? I learned Laplace transforms in graduate school
because they were interesting and because they might or might not be
useful to me some day. I learned sales and marketing for the same
reason. And I'm learning Ruby for the same reason. I'm not going to
demand that anyone pay me to program in Ruby, but it gives me another
option. There are starting to be opportunities for Ruby programmers,
especially Rails developers. So go ahead and learn Ruby and Rails, but
also learn networking skills and sales skills too, because ultimately
that's *how* you will make your learnings meaningful.

[snipped a lot of good stuff]

Why be concerned over Ruby's popularity? Or, at least, why be concerned
with making Ruby popular among people who don't have the wherewithal or
motivation to properly assess it? Will it cultivate a strong, lasting
Ruby community?

Mostly because people interested in the craft need to pay bills. I'm
interested in the craft of software development, but I'm also
interested in being able to eat. I would rather spend my time
learning a langauge that is possibly useful to me in a work
environment AND enriching...they are not mututally exclusive concepts.

Yes, but Ruby's popularity isn't necessarily the key to being able to
pay the bills programming in Ruby. The key to being able to pay the
bills programming in Ruby is to get good at programming in Ruby and to
get good at selling yourself, not the language. The Ruby community
*can't* do these for you.

But what we *can* do is network, and I think we *are* doing that. And
for what it's worth, I do think a web page with Ruby success stories has
value, as long as everyone realizes that it is only *part* of an overall
marketing plan.

Of course, but they need to know of the benefits. Some people simply
respond better to a narrative of someone else's success rather than
dry technical explanations (ie., my boss's couldnt care if Ruby has
metaprogramming and increases productivity; they want to know if
someone has been able to increase productivity first).

Yes ... some people respond to success stories and some people don't.
One of the things you'll discover if you pursue sales training is
something you already know -- people vary in what they respond to, how
they make business decisions, and whether they are more motivated by
moving towards something they perceive as positive or moving away from
something they perceive as negative.

And what's more, in general, people don't optimize, they satisfice. That
is, because it's so difficult to come up with something that's perfect
for all time, they do something that's good enough for now. An awful lot
of "good enough for now" has been done in C, C++, Java, Perl, PHP and
Python, and if you are willing to ditch portability, Delphi and Visual
Basic. That's one of the reasons I recommend Sharon Drew Morgen's
works so highly -- hers seems to have been the first sales system to
realize that businesses in general don't buy anything until what they
are currently doing and the way they are currently doing it is no longer
good enough.

It's a sad environment to work in, I know, but it's not totally
uncommon for those of us who are not lucky enough to work in good jobs
or have the proper education to garner said occupation.

Well ... I encourage you to pursue Ruby even if it currently isn't
paying the bills. And go find situations where what they are doing isn't
good enough.

 

[dblack]

Hi --

Yes, but Ruby's popularity isn't necessarily the key to being able to pay the
bills programming in Ruby. The key to being able to pay the bills programming
in Ruby is to get good at programming in Ruby and to get good at selling
yourself, not the language. The Ruby community *can't* do these for you.

But what we *can* do is network, and I think we *are* doing that. And for
what it's worth, I do think a web page with Ruby success stories has value,
as long as everyone realizes that it is only *part* of an overall marketing
plan.

And that listings of uses of Ruby in commercial projects represents
only part of Ruby's success.


David

--
Q. What is THE Ruby book for Rails developers?
A. RUBY FOR RAILS by David A. Black (http://www.manning.com/black)
(See what readers are saying! http://www.rubypal.com/r4rrevs.pdf)
Q. Where can I get Ruby/Rails on-site training, consulting, coaching?
A. Ruby Power and Light, LLC (http://www.rubypal.com)

 

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

Of course; I'm in the same boat But I'm skeptical that it is the role
of ruby-lang.org to help people get work.

Well, maybe not "ruby-lang.org" specifically, but I think networking
within the Ruby community clearly is something valuable and should be
encouraged and facilitated in some manner. Maybe LinkedIn is the answer;
I get lots of email from that, although most of it is totally irrelevant
to Ruby. The regional Ruby conferences are another good way to get this
going.

A year or two ago, Curt Hibbs started a "Why Ruby?" project on
rubyforge.org. It was largely a collection of presentations meant to
explain essential features of Ruby to developers and/or managers.

That collection was eventually moved over to ruby-doc.org. It's
pretty much remained unchanged since then. If Ruby advocacy is a
useful pursuit, it may be better served by its own site run by people
with the time and motivation to look after it.

Again, I think Ruby advocacy has value, as does something like a
"marketing plan". Whatever you think about Rails, Rails hype and the
possibly unrealistic expectations it has set, it did get attention in an
age when attention is a very scarce commodity. And the Rails community
is *not* shy about their success stories, and I don't think we should be
either.

 

[Jeremy McAnally]

See rubyforge.org

True, and I'm sure a number of people have gone that route. But again
we come back to the economics of time.

When I started with Ruby in 2001 or so, I was coding Java, and some
Perl. There's no way I would have tried to get Ruby into a prime-time
slot without more experience. I was working at a company were tech
leads were paid lip service, and J2EE rules the day (partly due, I
think, to superficial "success stories" claiming vast gains).

So I started using Ruby for whatever I could think of that would be fun
and interesting, on my own time.

I left that job by the end of the year. I realize not everyone has that
option, but I knew that the company was not one of the things I had the
power to change, and life's too short to sit a cube and be bored.

That's awesome; I really wish that I had had that option, but other
ties keep me in place.

Of course; I'm in the same boat But I'm skeptical that it is the role
of ruby-lang.org to help people get work.

A year or two ago, Curt Hibbs started a "Why Ruby?" project on
rubyforge.org. It was largely a collection of presentations meant to
explain essential features of Ruby to developers and/or managers.

That collection was eventually moved over to ruby-doc.org. It's pretty
much remained unchanged since then. If Ruby advocacy is a useful
pursuit, it may be better served by its own site run by people with the
time and motivation to look after it.

Well, I didnt mean to make it sound like people could/should use it to
get work.

My point about the success stories is this: They're a short, effective
way to curry interest and instill even a little trust in Ruby. That
is the job of the main website I think, and something that can be
easily server by this page.

--Jeremy

--
My free Ruby e-book:
http://www.humblelittlerubybook.com/book/

My blogs:
http://www.mrneighborly.com/
http://www.rubyinpractice.com/

 

[Jeremy McAnally]

That's a pretty narrow view of how managers and employees (or customers

and contractors) relate as people within an organization. There's an
awful lot of literature about this, some good and some bad, and one can
choose to take a cynical view or one can choose to learn the better
ways. My point is that *you* choose your attitude -- it is *not* defined
for you by anyone else.

No, really that's how we operate. Stop by some time and I'll show
you. :/ It's not the best job, but my and my colleague's opinions are
not taken very seriously, even though we're the professionals. It's
the pointy haired boss syndrome (PHBS).

Meaningful to whom? I learned Laplace transforms in graduate school
because they were interesting and because they might or might not be
useful to me some day. I learned sales and marketing for the same
reason. And I'm learning Ruby for the same reason. I'm not going to
demand that anyone pay me to program in Ruby, but it gives me another
option. There are starting to be opportunities for Ruby programmers,
especially Rails developers. So go ahead and learn Ruby and Rails, but
also learn networking skills and sales skills too, because ultimately
that's *how* you will make your learnings meaningful.

But everyone has their own reasons for learning, no? Some people can
already use Ruby skills if they have them; I had an opportunity to do
that here. I piddled around with this or that project, but to really
make sure I could use Ruby, I just had to use it. Plain and simple.
I really think this is a diffrn't strokes for diffrn't folks kind of
issue.

But what we *can* do is network, and I think we *are* doing that. And
for what it's worth, I do think a web page with Ruby success stories has
value, as long as everyone realizes that it is only *part* of an overall
marketing plan.

Oh, of course! But I think for a lot of people (ones that I've
encountered) that's a big part. For some people, language features
matter, for some the toolkit, and for others its success in "the real
world." As I've said before, it can be used to install even just a
little trust in ruby (and sometimes that's all that's needed).

Well ... I encourage you to pursue Ruby even if it currently isn't
paying the bills. And go find situations where what they are doing isn't
good enough.

Haha it definitely isn't paying the bills right now, but I'm in a
situation right now where I can learn it and apply it without a
problem on my own time. I wasnt in that situation a couple of years
ago. I'm hoping that in another couple of years...it will pay the
bills...and it will be in a place that is vital and always looking for
things that aren't good enough.

--
My free Ruby e-book:
http://www.humblelittlerubybook.com/book/

My blogs:
http://www.mrneighborly.com/
http://www.rubyinpractice.com/

 

[Jeremy McAnally]

And that listings of uses of Ruby in commercial projects represents

only part of Ruby's success.

If you can convince a manager who doesn't know programming but likes
to think he does that something without commercial cred is better than
something PHP or Java (i.e., one of my former managers), then I will
give you a sack of money.

Or a hug. Whichever is cheaper.

It's sad that was what decisions came down to for him (and one other
persoon Ive worked with), but it's a reality. And something that can
be easily addressed by (a slightly better version of) this little
list.

--
My free Ruby e-book:
http://www.humblelittlerubybook.com/book/

My blogs:
http://www.mrneighborly.com/
http://www.rubyinpractice.com/

 

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

Hi --



And that listings of uses of Ruby in commercial projects represents
only part of Ruby's success.

Yes ... commercial projects certainly aren't the only successes Ruby has
under its belt. But the key word is *projects* -- successful
*completion* of software that has value to people within some
organization. You can't take time, people and money out of the equation
for success, even in the context of a government, academic or non-profit
organization.

 

[dblack]

Hi --

If you can convince a manager who doesn't know programming but likes
to think he does that something without commercial cred is better than
something PHP or Java (i.e., one of my former managers), then I will
give you a sack of money.

Or a hug. Whichever is cheaper.

It's sad that was what decisions came down to for him (and one other
persoon Ive worked with), but it's a reality. And something that can
be easily addressed by (a slightly better version of) this little
list.

What I'm saying is that I don't consider the word "success" to be
synonymous with "commercial deployment".


David

--
Q. What is THE Ruby book for Rails developers?
A. RUBY FOR RAILS by David A. Black (http://www.manning.com/black)
(See what readers are saying! http://www.rubypal.com/r4rrevs.pdf)
Q. Where can I get Ruby/Rails on-site training, consulting, coaching?
A. Ruby Power and Light, LLC (http://www.rubypal.com)

 

[Jeremy McAnally]

What I'm saying is that I don't consider the word "success" to be
synonymous with "commercial deployment".

Ah, and I agree. Your previous post actually got me thinking about
how Rails and a number of other pieces of the Ruby community are
successes. Interesting thought, really, but I don't know if that's
what people look for in a "success stories" list...at least thats not
what I think about.

I didn't mean to make it seem as if I thought commercial involvement
was the only form of success, but in the context of the page's content
I believe that was the definition of success we were going
for...unless they want to re-scope/rename the page...

--Jeremy

--
My free Ruby e-book:
http://www.humblelittlerubybook.com/book/

My blogs:
http://www.mrneighborly.com/
http://www.rubyinpractice.com/

 

[James Britt]

Again, I think Ruby advocacy has value, as does something like a
"marketing plan". Whatever you think about Rails, Rails hype and the
possibly unrealistic expectations it has set, it did get attention in an
age when attention is a very scarce commodity. And the Rails community
is *not* shy about their success stories, and I don't think we should be
either.

On the other hand, I know people who, somehow or another, got the
impression that Ruby on Rails was the One True Path to Effortless
Productivity. After some initial success with basic things, they hit a
wall, and became disillusioned.

That's when PHP starts looking more and more appealing.

 

[SonOfLilit]

There was one case I remember where a Success Stories page really got
me interested in something:

The Franz Lisp success stories, including the Crash Bandicoot series
of games (and the Jak & Daxter series, but I've never played those, so
it struck me less), modified immediately my view of Lisp from 'a
language only applicable for data structure crunching' (i.e. almost no
communication with the "outside world" of other software on the
computer/net) to 'a dynamic language on par with C in performance with
much higher abstraction that can be used for graphical things, even 3d
computer games'.

So yes, Success Stories pages do have use.

But I don't think the correct attitude of such a page is to show that
"here, this was used where money was involved, so don't be afraid to
put yours behind it". but to show scales and domains of projects that
the language was a factor in making possible that the average reader
possibly thought are impossible with it.

Show a huge project, a fast project (with C in the right places, of
course). a complicated algorithmic project, a beautiful graphic
application, projects that really USE ruby tlike Rails, show camping.
I think camping deserves a special place in such a page because it is
very RUBY, wouldn't possibly be able to achieve in the same way with
another language, and is so damn ELEGANT. Also, code USING camping is
so elegant for having a whole website written in 100% ruby deployable
as a single .rb file.

 

[Gregory Brown]

In that case, could the page be renamed to 'Who uses Ruby?'. The Python
success stories page is basically that - a huge list of all the various
applications that have been found for Python.

'Success stories' just sounds so... startup-ish.

Hmm.. "Who uses Ruby?" or "Real World Ruby", or something like that
might be better indeed since 'success' is such a relative term.

 

[dblack]

Hi --

Hmm.. "Who uses Ruby?" or "Real World Ruby", or something like that
might be better indeed since 'success' is such a relative term.

"Real world" is a *very* relative term I like "Who uses Ruby?"
because it's the only one that isn't an established euphemism for
commercial use.


David

--
Q. What is THE Ruby book for Rails developers?
A. RUBY FOR RAILS by David A. Black (http://www.manning.com/black)
(See what readers are saying! http://www.rubypal.com/r4rrevs.pdf)
Q. Where can I get Ruby/Rails on-site training, consulting, coaching?
A. Ruby Power and Light, LLC (http://www.rubypal.com)

 

[Jeremy McAnally]

+1 for "Who uses Ruby?" or "Who's using Ruby?" or any variant thereof.
Makes more sense to me.

--Jeremy

Hi --



"Real world" is a *very* relative term I like "Who uses Ruby?"
because it's the only one that isn't an established euphemism for
commercial use.


David

--
Q. What is THE Ruby book for Rails developers?
A. RUBY FOR RAILS by David A. Black (http://www.manning.com/black)
(See what readers are saying! http://www.rubypal.com/r4rrevs.pdf)
Q. Where can I get Ruby/Rails on-site training, consulting, coaching?
A. Ruby Power and Light, LLC (http://www.rubypal.com)

--
My free Ruby e-book:
http://www.humblelittlerubybook.com/book/

My blogs:
http://www.mrneighborly.com/
http://www.rubyinpractice.com/

 

[James Britt]

+1 for "Who uses Ruby?" or "Who's using Ruby?" or any variant thereof.

Yes.

It could be useful to show the range of uses people find for Ruby.

There are some number of people who conflate Ruby with Rails, and
believe that Ruby is unsuitable unless you are building a very
particular type of mid-sized Web site.


--

James Britt

http://www.ruby-doc.org - Ruby Help & Documentation
http://beginningruby.com - Beginning Ruby: The Online Book
http://www.rubystuff.com - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff
http://www.jamesbritt.com - Playing with Better Toys

 

[Rob Muhlestein]

People interested in the craft of software development will learn
languages for the sake of learning new concepts. I'd much rather see a
slower growth of the Ruby community than try to draw people in who will
only pursue Ruby if they think it offers gainful employment or some
"non-hobby" use.

Trying to "sell" a language by tossing out showpiece success stories or
prospects of corporate employment is of limited value. People so
persuaded by this are just as likely to jump to the next New Hot Thing
in a year or so.

I agree for anyone convinced by the stories *alone*. I never
interpreted 'success stories' to translate to 'you can make money with
this language'. Perhaps the word 'success' is the problem.

Like others I see a 'Who's using Ruby' as more a means to combat PHBS
(which exists in the biggest of technical shops) and to help get the
creative "what if" juices going.

I know it sounds childish, but the phrase "...but X is using Ruby"
really carries weight sometimes when it shouldn't. Responsible
technologists will only pull this out after *real* review of the
technology, whether it be "Hot" at the time or not.

Why be concerned over Ruby's popularity?

Mindshare is important to any community. It just is. I know it is
getting crowded but having lack of mindshare is definitely a worse
problem.

I am encouraged by the number of young people whom I know locally who
are considering technology careers not just for the money, but for the
enjoyment they are getting out of programming--largely from the Rails
phenomenon. I have also read students who post who *hate* programming
in Java. Ruby keeps them motivated.

[BTW, I still think they should learn Java for the same reason I am
forcing myself to learn some .Net. I agree with what I've heard Chad
say in podcasts, "you should learn a new language every year,
particularly one you don't like" for the mind-opening excercise that
is.]

Or, at least, why be concerned
with making Ruby popular among people who don't have the wherewithal or
motivation to properly assess it? Will it cultivate a strong, lasting
Ruby community?

I don't know that such people would ever consider themselves part of
the community. Do techno-decision makers mandating Java versions of
anything belong to the Java community? Not unless there is a 'buzzword'
subclass.

Someone choosing Ruby for production development had better be sure of
the value and risks, which are not apparent from one-page success
stories. I'd prefer someone not use Ruby at all rather than use Ruby
with mistaken expectations, fail, then blame the language.

Amen and amen! Boy I hope everyone reads that.

Over zealous evangelists with their auto-defend set too high hurt more
than help with their foolish "it's been fine for 10 years" posts
suggesting no further scrutiny is needed.

But, again, after review the "it's been fine for 10 years" does sound
nice to that doesnt-know-hes-pointy-haired, hasnt-coded-in-three-years,
technology-picking, senior "Distinguished Engineer." Too often having
to sell a perception is our reality even after we know the truth. The
danger is not learning the truth before pitching the perception.