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People don’t go full sheep mode. They just invest in an ecosystem, and don’t want to waste time looking for a new hammer. Part of what has also kept Ruby laggi

by fny 5y ago

People don’t go full sheep mode. They just invest in an ecosystem, and don’t want to waste time looking for a new hammer. Part of what has also kept Ruby lagging is also cultural. It’s not a language that was ever adopted by engineers but rather artists, and it took a while for these artist types to realize performance actually matters. Python, on the other hand, always had an avid base of CS oriented folk that helped drive the language forward technically. Ruby instead only had Rails, which was a productivity marvel rather than a technical one.

randmeerkat 5y ago
> Part of what has also kept Ruby lagging is also cultural. It’s not a language that was ever adopted by engineers but rather artists, and it took a while for these artist types to realize performance actually matters. … are none of the engineers that work at GitHub (Microsoft) CS oriented folks? > Ruby instead only had Rails, which was a productivity marvel rather than a technical one. … are productivity marvels and technical marvels mutually exclusive?
- WJW 5y ago
  Not necessarily, but Rails is much more a productivity marvel than a technical marvel tbh. This is as it should be for a productivity oriented tool, not surprising users with technically advanced stuff is a feature in that case. And sure, some of the engineers at Github/Shopify/etc are super qualified but from my personal experience in the Ruby ecosystem (5+ years and counting) there are WAY more autodidact freelancers who can throw up new websites in minutes but still struggle with computing the algorithmic complexity of linked lists than there are CS graduates who have a solid grounding in data structures and algorithms. In such an environment, it is not surprising that many of the available libraries are very business-oriented but not very optimized.
jbverschoor 5y ago
The CS/tech industry is full of toxic elitists, who get off at seemingly complex or over architected things. Ruby and it’s ecosystem make things look easy. So easy that anybody can create software. The elitists fail to see that creating such an ecosystem is where true skills and thinking required. Funny part is most of them ARE sheep, and make so many basic and architectural mistakes. They simply like to feel superior to others.
mperham 5y ago
But Ruby is just as fast as Python in most of the comparisons I’ve seen. It is true IME that usability and compatibility, not performance, are Matz’s first concern.

by fny 5y ago

randmeerkat 5y ago

> Part of what has also kept Ruby lagging is also cultural. It’s not a language that was ever adopted by engineers but rather artists, and it took a while for these artist types to realize performance actually matters. … are none of the engineers that work at GitHub (Microsoft) CS oriented folks? > Ruby instead only had Rails, which was a productivity marvel rather than a technical one. … are productivity marvels and technical marvels mutually exclusive?

WJW 5y ago
Not necessarily, but Rails is much more a productivity marvel than a technical marvel tbh. This is as it should be for a productivity oriented tool, not surprising users with technically advanced stuff is a feature in that case. And sure, some of the engineers at Github/Shopify/etc are super qualified but from my personal experience in the Ruby ecosystem (5+ years and counting) there are WAY more autodidact freelancers who can throw up new websites in minutes but still struggle with computing the algorithmic complexity of linked lists than there are CS graduates who have a solid grounding in data structures and algorithms. In such an environment, it is not surprising that many of the available libraries are very business-oriented but not very optimized.

jbverschoor 5y ago

The CS/tech industry is full of toxic elitists, who get off at seemingly complex or over architected things. Ruby and it’s ecosystem make things look easy. So easy that anybody can create software. The elitists fail to see that creating such an ecosystem is where true skills and thinking required. Funny part is most of them ARE sheep, and make so many basic and architectural mistakes. They simply like to feel superior to others.

mperham 5y ago

But Ruby is just as fast as Python in most of the comparisons I’ve seen. It is true IME that usability and compatibility, not performance, are Matz’s first concern.