6 ms·
I hear you, and I too love Ruby, and I too have yet to actually need the performance benefits of Crystal. But man, you don't realize how awesome static typing
by nlh 8y ago
I hear you, and I too love Ruby, and I too have yet to actually need the performance benefits of Crystal. But man, you don't realize how awesome static typing is until you actually start using it. There are whole classes of bugs that just get nixed before the program even runs. It makes you think more about how to structure things, how you're passing arguments, how you use variables, etc.
Now maybe you're really really really good w/ Ruby and you don't make those mistakes anymore, but for an "advanced beginner" like myself, it's really helpful.
- vidarh 8y agoI came to Ruby from 20 years of working in statically typed languages, and I think it largely boils down to how you're used to working. E.g. you need test either way, and properly written tests reveal most of the same typing issues static typing does. I'd enjoy static typing if I didn't have to sacrifice the flexibility of Ruby, but so far I've yet to see a system with good-enough type inference to make up for the extra ceremony. I hope that will eventually change, but what I've seen of Crystal is not it.
- tigershark 8y agoWhich statically typed languages did you use in these 20 years? If you ever used Haskell/OCaml/F# it would seem a pretty strange declaration.
- vinceguidry 8y agoYeah, I'm not saying it's not useful, and I can't wait to introduce static typing into my own programs and get those benefits. But every time I step away from Ruby I end up missing it more than the other language gives me. And this is after I figure out how the other language does what I'm trying to do. To me typing is something you don't want until you really want it, until then it's just boilerplate. That "class of bugs that just get nixed" isn't something that starts happening, once you're skilled anyway, until a certain point in the evolution of your application. There's a lot of code that I add to my Ruby classes that involves type-checking, and it would be nice to lean on a dedicated system for handling type abstractions rather than doing it ad-hoc every time I have to do it. For that reason, I'm greatly looking forward to Ruby's upcoming type system.
- crimsonalucard 8y agoHe's more beginner then you. Calling ruby the one true language after it's been losing traction for years indicates to me he probably just started.
- vinceguidry 8y agoI've been coding since I was 9 years old, made my first web page at 15, I'm 34 now, having been a pro web dev for 5 years. I'm no greybeard, but I'm definitely not a beginner. And I stand by my assertion. Programming languages come and go. I've been watching it happen for over a decade. Ruby's the one language that transcends the normal reasons why they do that. Other languages fit hardware or chosen domains better or worse, those are the reasons why you'd choose one or the other. Ruby's the only language that fits the mind better.
- CrystalLangUser 8y agoGood thing Crystal based its syntax off of Ruby then. And it's statically typed, thank god. I do professional work in Ruby currently, but Crystal is just so much more pleasant to work with.
- hota_mazi 8y agoBut surely you see that Ruby has been on a steady decline for ten years, and with RoR falling out of grace, that decline is accelerating.
- vidarh 8y agoFor me the last decade has been one of seeing steadily increasing demand for my Ruby skills, and I don't do Rails at all. So if Ruby is "on a steady decline" someone forgot to tell my customers and employers.
- crimsonalucard 8y agoYou live in a bubble. Look up some numbers. From an empirical standpoint ruby is dying. Of course your anecdotal experience trumps all the numbers so my point is invalid.