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When I discovered Ruby 12 years ago, it was an amazing moment. All the features I loved from my previous favorite languages Perl, Smalltalk, and Scheme in one p

When I discovered Ruby 12 years ago, it was an amazing moment. All the features I loved from my previous favorite languages Perl, Smalltalk, and Scheme in one place, but with a much more reasonable syntax, a far more robust standard library, a complete and dead-simple packaging system, and a practical and portable runtime. The fact that it still feels magical, fun, practical, and pragmatic all at the same time while progressing and improving step by step each release after all these years is a truly amazing feat, especially when you compare it to its peers. So congratulation and thanks to Matz, and all the other Ruby contributors for creating and maintaining and growing and improving this amazing language that's still my favorite. 2.5 looks great, and I can't wait to see what's in store for the future.

pka 9y ago
I started a new contracting gig a couple of months ago, in Ruby. I had used it briefly years before in another project, but it was so long ago that I had to learn it again basically from scratch. Although I don't really think the language is anything special (i.e. it's a standard dynamic OO language), what really turns me off Ruby is this dogmatic, almost religious aspect of its community. Take POODR - it's more or less the community bible. If it's not written in POODR - don't do it. If it is - do it that way or else. It's POODR's way or the highway. According to more experienced Rubyists more than 80% of the Ruby community use Rails. Rails is so widely spread that its development even fundamentally affects Ruby's roadmap. Now irregardless of what you think about POODR or OO or dynamic types or whatever, a homogenous echo chamber filled with people chanting the same things over and over again is not a good thing. As a counter example, take Javascript. Yes, it has its warts; its equality table is a joke. Ruby is a better thought out and implemented language in almost every aspect (although I do like Javascript's minimalism better, but that's a matter of taste I guess.) However, Javascript's community is as diverse, vibrant and experiment-friendly as it gets - there are the OO diehards, but there's also React, fantasy-land, macros, monads. People are trying out new things constantly. Now I know you have monads in Ruby too or flow-like gradual typing libraries or rewrites of Clojure's spec. But at least where I work (and I work with some very experienced Ruby people) those libraries and the ideas they embody would never ever be considered as serious alternatives for anything. POODR or else.
- rubyfan 9y ago
  What is POODR?
  - heartbreak 9y ago
    Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby by Sandi Metz. http://www.poodr.com/ http://www.poodr.com/
    - qume 9y ago
      Thanks. Rubiest here for a decade and hadn't heard of it.
      - rubyfan 9y ago
        Same. I’ve seen Sandi speak and had a beer with her at Goruco like 10 years ago. Great speaker to be sure. I’ve never encountered anyone as passionate as @pka suggests. Perhaps POODR is popular where they work but it’s far from universal amongst rubyists.
- eropple 9y ago
  As a counterpoint, I have been writing Ruby as a primary language for about five years, both as an employee and a consultant. I am consistently solicited for advice on both code and architecture in Ruby by colleagues to positive results (and I do the same, don't get me wrong--that's how collegiate relationships should work). And, yet, I had to google what POODR was. I've also never used Rails; on this Christmas morning I'm noodling on a Grape API that uses grape-swagger for API documentation. I have never seen any resistance to experiments or diversity in the space. There's a happy path, but there's plenty of room, and welcoming communities, outside of it. (I like JavaScript, too, for much the same reasons you do.)
- heartbreak 9y ago
  I'll pile on here with another counter data point to say that having written Ruby (both Rails and otherwise) for 7 years, and having read POODR, I do not understand where you're getting this dogma idea from. I have yet to experience a single instance of "It's POODR's way or the highway."

pka 9y ago

I started a new contracting gig a couple of months ago, in Ruby. I had used it briefly years before in another project, but it was so long ago that I had to learn it again basically from scratch. Although I don't really think the language is anything special (i.e. it's a standard dynamic OO language), what really turns me off Ruby is this dogmatic, almost religious aspect of its community. Take POODR - it's more or less the community bible. If it's not written in POODR - don't do it. If it is - do it that way or else. It's POODR's way or the highway. According to more experienced Rubyists more than 80% of the Ruby community use Rails. Rails is so widely spread that its development even fundamentally affects Ruby's roadmap. Now irregardless of what you think about POODR or OO or dynamic types or whatever, a homogenous echo chamber filled with people chanting the same things over and over again is not a good thing. As a counter example, take Javascript. Yes, it has its warts; its equality table is a joke. Ruby is a better thought out and implemented language in almost every aspect (although I do like Javascript's minimalism better, but that's a matter of taste I guess.) However, Javascript's community is as diverse, vibrant and experiment-friendly as it gets - there are the OO diehards, but there's also React, fantasy-land, macros, monads. People are trying out new things constantly. Now I know you have monads in Ruby too or flow-like gradual typing libraries or rewrites of Clojure's spec. But at least where I work (and I work with some very experienced Ruby people) those libraries and the ideas they embody would never ever be considered as serious alternatives for anything. POODR or else.

rubyfan 9y ago
What is POODR?
- heartbreak 9y ago
  Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby by Sandi Metz. http://www.poodr.com/ http://www.poodr.com/
  - qume 9y ago
    Thanks. Rubiest here for a decade and hadn't heard of it.
    - rubyfan 9y ago
      Same. I’ve seen Sandi speak and had a beer with her at Goruco like 10 years ago. Great speaker to be sure. I’ve never encountered anyone as passionate as @pka suggests. Perhaps POODR is popular where they work but it’s far from universal amongst rubyists.
eropple 9y ago
As a counterpoint, I have been writing Ruby as a primary language for about five years, both as an employee and a consultant. I am consistently solicited for advice on both code and architecture in Ruby by colleagues to positive results (and I do the same, don't get me wrong--that's how collegiate relationships should work). And, yet, I had to google what POODR was. I've also never used Rails; on this Christmas morning I'm noodling on a Grape API that uses grape-swagger for API documentation. I have never seen any resistance to experiments or diversity in the space. There's a happy path, but there's plenty of room, and welcoming communities, outside of it. (I like JavaScript, too, for much the same reasons you do.)
heartbreak 9y ago
I'll pile on here with another counter data point to say that having written Ruby (both Rails and otherwise) for 7 years, and having read POODR, I do not understand where you're getting this dogma idea from. I have yet to experience a single instance of "It's POODR's way or the highway."