Zed Shaw - Ruby has dodged a bullet

[MenTaLguY]

It's not like people who are willing to write these sort of things,
like Zed is/was with Mongrel, or yourself with Swiftiply and EventMachine,
or MentalGuy with FastThread, or Wycats with DataObjects, or Evan with
Rubinius exactly grow on trees. The people that are making these types
of contributions, and more importantly delivering working, stable
code, are relatively rare. When we lose one it's a shame.

What makes it more saddening is that each person's contribution to
the community is multiplicative rather than linear: we all learn from one
another. I know I benefit a lot from the time I spend here.

Just for one small example, Zed was the guy who introduced me to
Ragel and sold me on the idea of copying the specification BNF directly into
a state machine generator for the sake of robustness, maintainability,
speed, and standards-compliance. Those are lessons I've taken over to
other projects since, including lib2geom's svgd parser and (indirectly
via 2geom) Inkscape.

Still, leaving might have been the best thing for Zed; it's obvious
he was in a situation that wasn't very healthy for him, or arguably those
around him either. Like Giles, I hope that any needed changes can get
made.

Here's looking forward to another year of Ruby. I owe all of you more
than you know.

-mental

 

[Chad Perrin]

Exactly.

Part of that will mean self-policing. When someone on the list decides
to unload with the vitriol, the rest of us need to step up and insist on
some basic maturity.

That doesn't mean people can't or shouldn't point out weak arguments,
unsound ideas, bad code, etc, just that being nasty is self-serving and
bad for the Ruby community.

I've seen people, from time to time, chime into a slightly heated debate
with the words "What would Matz do?" or something to that effect. It
tends to work well. All it takes is a reminder to try to adhere to the
reputation that Ruby's community is one of the friendliest -- and to
offer those reminders even when someone is defending Ruby against
aggressors.

 

[Siep Korteling]

Well, it made slashdot:
http://developers.slashdot.org/developers/08/01/02/1811218.shtml

 

[Rick DeNatale]

I've seen people, from time to time, chime into a slightly heated debate
with the words "What would Matz do?" or something to that effect. It
tends to work well. All it takes is a reminder to try to adhere to the
reputation that Ruby's community is one of the friendliest -- and to
offer those reminders even when someone is defending Ruby against
aggressors.

MINSWAN

Jeremy McAnally recently brought that up on the rails-talk list when
someone complained about yet another repeat of the recent newbie
question about why the tutorial in AWDWR doesn't work with Rails
1.2.x. Few understood it.

Interestingly enough, although the rant in question seems to be more
about the Rails community than the Ruby community, all of the
discussion of this seems to be Ruby-talk. I'm not sure I've even seen
it mentioned on Rails-talk. I guess those of us who are rubyists at
heart first, and perhaps rail-roaders second, have thinner skins.

 

[Giles Bowkett]

That doesn't mean people can't or shouldn't point out weak arguments,

I've seen people, from time to time, chime into a slightly heated debate
with the words "What would Matz do?" or something to that effect. It
tends to work well. All it takes is a reminder to try to adhere to the
reputation that Ruby's community is one of the friendliest -- and to
offer those reminders even when someone is defending Ruby against
aggressors.

I think that's why Rails has issues. "What would DHH do?" Well, he'd
probably flip you the bird or something. Very very good leadership in
terms of generating buy-in can be very very bad leadership in terms of
setting the tone.

--
Giles Bowkett

Podcast: http://hollywoodgrit.blogspot.com
Blog: http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com
Portfolio: http://www.gilesgoatboy.org
Tumblelog: http://giles.tumblr.com

 

[Giles Bowkett]

Interestingly enough, although the rant in question seems to be more

about the Rails community than the Ruby community, all of the
discussion of this seems to be Ruby-talk. I'm not sure I've even seen
it mentioned on Rails-talk. I guess those of us who are rubyists at
heart first, and perhaps rail-roaders second, have thinner skins.

Yow. (That seems a bit weird.)

--
Giles Bowkett

Podcast: http://hollywoodgrit.blogspot.com
Blog: http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com
Portfolio: http://www.gilesgoatboy.org
Tumblelog: http://giles.tumblr.com

 

[Rick DeNatale]

I think that's why Rails has issues. "What would DHH do?" Well, he'd
probably flip you the bird or something. Very very good leadership in
terms of generating buy-in can be very very bad leadership in terms of
setting the tone.

So what's the value of x in DHHIxSWAx ?

 

[Giles Bowkett]

I think that's why Rails has issues. "What would DHH do?" Well, he'd

Exactly.

Great as it may be, I think the word "opinionated" has a tendency to lead
people down two different, equally incorrect garden paths:

"opinionated", "agile", "YAGNI", "ignoring the wheel", "insufficient"

and

"opinionated", "obnoxious", "rude"

Yah. The other thing is, DHH has all these dismissive opinions about
"enterprise", but he actually went and *read* Fowler's "Patterns of
Enterprise Architecture." A lot of the Rails ex-PHP types parrot the
attitude without emulating the research (or even realizing it ever
happened).

--
Giles Bowkett

Podcast: http://hollywoodgrit.blogspot.com
Blog: http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com
Portfolio: http://www.gilesgoatboy.org
Tumblelog: http://giles.tumblr.com

 

[Sam Smoot]

I think that's why Rails has issues. "What would DHH do?" Well, he'd
probably flip you the bird or something.

I just had to laugh at this. ;-)

It's just so true. So I complain about the lack of an IdentityMap in
ActiveRecord. A few AR fans tell me it's too hard. DHH says "go get
'em tiger" (which I take as pretty patronizing), and later (IIRC)
something to the effect of, STFU until I've contributed something
worthwhile to the community.

Now by that point I'm not going to claim some sort of notoriety, but I
did have 4 active projects on Rubyforge including an ActiveRecord
adapter for MSSQL.

So I've been wrong many a time here on comp.lang.ruby. But I feel like
I've always been given the benefit of doubt, and the basic respect I'd
hope to myself be giving to other Rubyists here. They just don't feel
like the same community.

 

[MonkeeSage]

...




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.

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.

Regards,
Jordan

 

[Austin Ziegler]

Anyways, back to Zed: Despite some people claiming "it's not that
hard", people willing to write robust, stable, C extensions for Ruby
are very few and far between it seems. Pure Rubyists are a dime a
dozen in comparison. At least that's my perception of things.

Depends on what one is developing.

Some things are (a) still hard in pure Ruby and (b) much more useful
without depending on a C extension.

-austin

 

[James Britt]

Exactly.

Great as it may be, I think the word "opinionated" has a tendency to lead
people down two different, equally incorrect garden paths:

There's a fine line between opinionated and bigoted.

 

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

I know I meant that Ruby is the other language about which we say
"look everyone! cool language! programmer productivity! fun!" and they
turn up their noses and say "omg slow".

Well ... Ruby is not "omg slow", just "sorta slow", as long as we're
being precise. Rebol is "omg slow".

Interesting! Rebol is in many ways a Forth/Lisp cross too, and of
course there's Joy, but that never seemed like a 'real world' language
somehow.

Yeah, Joy and Factor probably have a lot in common, although I don't
recall how much of Joy is from Forth and how much from Lisp. Still, I'm
reminded of the old saw, "If you've seen one Forth, well, you've seen
one Forth."

 

[Chuck Remes]

My entirely unscientific theory: Because in Ruby-talk, we *care*
about
how, and whether, we get along.

Agreed. That's (partly) why I started this whole sorry thread. (I
apologize.)

I'm a rubyist first and a rails adherent a distant fifth. I hate to be
tarnished by such a broad brush, but Zed's rant hit the entire
community. I had to shine a light on it. Though it would have happened
anyway, I regret being the person to first post on it here. Sorry,
sorry, sorry.

 

[Marc Heiler]

Though it would have happened anyway, I regret being

the person to first post on it here.

Well ... passion survives any number of rants

 

[Lee Jarvis]

Not that I blame Chuck, but I find it unfortunate that this thread is
getting about 50 or more posts then the usual code related thread.
Perhaps its just me.

 

[Robert Dober]

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!!!!

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

 

[Todd Benson]

But, I just
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...

Sort of off topic: I've seen graduated engineers know exactly how to
use the CAD software, but could barely engineer a birdhouse. I'm sure
we've all seen something like that. I think it's a classic
we-give-them-the-tools-to make-them-happy syndrome; thus the elites'
gripes about Rails. You make it easy to make, but you also make it
easy to break, because the developer using the underlying tools didn't
understand some fundamental concepts (classic Jurassic Park "stand on
the shoulders of others" stuff . It's just a theory of mine...
It's kind of why I tell people to learn Ruby first, then Rails or any
other structure you need for internet exchange. Ah well ... just an
opinion. Sorry for my noise, guys.

Robert

Todd

 

[Todd Benson]

Sort of off topic: I've seen graduated engineers know exactly how to
use the CAD software, but could barely engineer a birdhouse.

Sorry, I should point out this doesn't apply to you. I've seen some
really good code on this list from you. I hope to see a lot more!

Todd

 

[Robert Dober]

Sorry, I should point out this doesn't apply to you. I've seen some
really good code on this list from you. I hope to see a lot more!

I did in no way take offense, but thanks anyway.
BTW I love the point you made, Rails is exactly a powerful tool making
things easy, that has to have downsides of course...

Robert