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The main point is that Ruby is not implemented in terms of itself? That surely doesn't come across as the main point of the article, as it is only mentioned in

The main point is that Ruby is not implemented in terms of itself? That surely doesn't come across as the main point of the article, as it is only mentioned in a short 3 sentence paragraph that mostly consists of links to other articles. I felt the article was a bit content-free. The main point I got out of it was that Ruby isn't elegant like Scheme or Smalltalk. This is the same sort of thing that has been repeated ad nauseum since the dawn of internet discussion. If Ruby is too gauche, Scheme and Smalltalk already exist and provide actual implementations of this strange symmetrical, consistent, mathemagical "elegance" that certain programmers get a boner over. (substitute "OOP" for "mathemagical" in the case of Smalltalk) Now, I'll derail this thread with some opinions of my own. I used to love Perl. The inconsistency, crypticness, ability to make incomprehensible one-liners that actually did something useful - I truly felt like a wizard. Perl golf was a big hobby of mine. Unfortunately as soon as Java became the next big thing, Perl became totally not cool. To be honest, Perl was never "cool" anyway. The good Perl guys were all old systems administratiors who still posted "rants" to alt.kibology and only had sex when dressed in giant furry chipmunk suits. However, at least they were free-thinking, anything goes weirdos. In contrast, the Java droids who replaced them had the spirit of soviet city planners dressed in khakis and a SUN logo polo shirt... Ugh. I'm completely indebted to Matz, (and DHH, because ruby wouldn't have taken off as it has without Rails) because he's invented a Perl that is "cool." No longer do I have to make the choice between working with guys still into "the Church of the Subgenius" or guys who actually wear their blackberry in a holster on the outside of their pants. I can now work on fun startup things with cool people who I can actually relate to. There's just enough "WTF" in Ruby to keep me happy, and just enough "OBJECT ORIENTED DESIGN PATTERNZ" stuff to keep those types of people happy. There's even enough Lispy stuff in there to keep those types happy for about 30 minutes until they go back to their real avocation, posting long diatribes to mailing lists about how things aren't as elegant as Lisp.

raganwald 18y ago
No, the main point of my personal blog post was that I am personally wrestling with the idea that Ruby as a whole might be more than the sum of its inelegant parts. The main point of the criticism within the point of the post was about Ruby not being implemented in itself, but that is not the point of the post.
- menloparkbum 18y ago
  Ah, well that is a good point. However, many (most?) good things in software have a bit of insanity going on somewhere in the mix. For instance, any computer game is definitely "more than the sum of its inelegant parts." My main beefs with Ruby are that it is slow, and there is a weird reality distortion field within the community that makes a lot of people respond to legitimate criticisms with tribal defensiveness. However, I won't go into either point as Zed Shaw seems to have covered them quite well.
  - davidw 18y ago
    > makes a lot of people respond to legitimate criticisms with tribal defensiveness. That's true for pretty much any computer system, whether it's Tcl, Emacs, Ubuntu, Postgres or whatever. BTW, I loved the descriptions of Perl and Java users - it's not often that I get that good a laugh when reading something. And I agree with you completely about Ruby hitting a 'sweet spot'.
raganwald 18y ago
I should also mention that part of what I like about Ruby is its diversity. I'm completely indebted to Matz, (and DHH, because ruby wouldn't have taken off as it has without Rails) because he's invented a Perl that is "cool." See now, I am completely indebted to Matz because he's invented a Lisp that is "cool." I think Ruby truly has it both ways.

raganwald 18y ago

No, the main point of my personal blog post was that I am personally wrestling with the idea that Ruby as a whole might be more than the sum of its inelegant parts. The main point of the criticism within the point of the post was about Ruby not being implemented in itself, but that is not the point of the post.

menloparkbum 18y ago
Ah, well that is a good point. However, many (most?) good things in software have a bit of insanity going on somewhere in the mix. For instance, any computer game is definitely "more than the sum of its inelegant parts." My main beefs with Ruby are that it is slow, and there is a weird reality distortion field within the community that makes a lot of people respond to legitimate criticisms with tribal defensiveness. However, I won't go into either point as Zed Shaw seems to have covered them quite well.
- davidw 18y ago
  > makes a lot of people respond to legitimate criticisms with tribal defensiveness. That's true for pretty much any computer system, whether it's Tcl, Emacs, Ubuntu, Postgres or whatever. BTW, I loved the descriptions of Perl and Java users - it's not often that I get that good a laugh when reading something. And I agree with you completely about Ruby hitting a 'sweet spot'.

raganwald 18y ago

I should also mention that part of what I like about Ruby is its diversity. I'm completely indebted to Matz, (and DHH, because ruby wouldn't have taken off as it has without Rails) because he's invented a Perl that is "cool." See now, I am completely indebted to Matz because he's invented a Lisp that is "cool." I think Ruby truly has it both ways.