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Rails was about the first time a functional language (probably other types too) had a programmatic proponent, it leveraged ruby to create an easy way to build w

by flukus 8y ago

Rails was about the first time a functional language (probably other types too) had a programmatic proponent, it leveraged ruby to create an easy way to build web apps and people/companies wanted web apps. Just about every other language was full of smug proponents who just wanted to show how little code you needed to generate Fibonacci numbers, as if that was at all relevant to most developers. They spent so much time telling everyone why $lang was great and very little time showing them how it could be used for great things. Just looking at the pharo homepage this jumps out: >Live, immersive environment: Immediate feedback at any moment of your development: Developing, testing, debugging. Even in production environments, you will never be stuck in compiling and deploying steps again! That doesn't appeal to me at all. I don't want to be debugging in live environment, I don't want users or testers having that power and I don't get stuck in compiling/deploying steps.

coldtea 8y ago
>Rails was about the first time a functional language (probably other types too) had a programmatic proponent, it leveraged ruby to create an easy way to build web apps and people/companies wanted web apps. Just about every other language was full of smug proponents who just wanted to show how little code you needed to generate Fibonacci numbers, as if that was at all relevant to most developers. Yeah, that wasn't it. Maybe you weren't there? This sounds like a third hand experience of the era. Functional languages have been used in major programming projects (and had popular apps, from Eclipse and AutoCAD) for decades before Ruby, not to mention AI work. Besides, PG's company used CL to build one of the first web stores way before Rails was even a thing. >That doesn't appeal to me at all. I don't want to be debugging in live environment, I don't want users or testers having that power and I don't get stuck in compiling/deploying steps. That's because you haven't used it.

by flukus 8y ago

coldtea 8y ago

>Rails was about the first time a functional language (probably other types too) had a programmatic proponent, it leveraged ruby to create an easy way to build web apps and people/companies wanted web apps. Just about every other language was full of smug proponents who just wanted to show how little code you needed to generate Fibonacci numbers, as if that was at all relevant to most developers. Yeah, that wasn't it. Maybe you weren't there? This sounds like a third hand experience of the era. Functional languages have been used in major programming projects (and had popular apps, from Eclipse and AutoCAD) for decades before Ruby, not to mention AI work. Besides, PG's company used CL to build one of the first web stores way before Rails was even a thing. >That doesn't appeal to me at all. I don't want to be debugging in live environment, I don't want users or testers having that power and I don't get stuck in compiling/deploying steps. That's because you haven't used it.