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I think over time we've seen that this is a good argument, as far as it goes. The old c2 discussion page for this is still good (and particularly relevant here

I think over time we've seen that this is a good argument, as far as it goes. The old c2 discussion page for this is still good (and particularly relevant here at HN because of pg's contribution): http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?AreDesignPatternsMissingLanguageFeatures http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?AreDesignPatternsMissingLanguageFeatu... Also others have weighed in: http://www.snell-pym.org.uk/archives/2008/12/29/design-patterns/ http://www.snell-pym.org.uk/archives/2008/12/29/design-patte... Let's take C#'s advancements over Java as an example. The LINQ features are clearly imported from the functional and/or dynamic world as replacements for iterator patterns. C#'s closures make Strategy and Command patterns basically irrelevant. Events and Delegates replace wiring up an Observer pattern. A meta-concern, if you will, is that general OOP principles don't apply in the same way in dynamic environments the way they do in statically typed environments. When I'm in Ruby I'm not nearly as concerned with coupling and some of the larger architectural concerns the way I am in Java/.NET. Because the language is dynamic, to some degree everything is an interface, and there's no need for complicated frameworks like IOC, etc. There's also no need for all the overhead of learning and managing generics/parameterized types. All those angle brackets and abstractions just to support what amounts to a more robust compile-time unit test. Makes me tired just thinkin about it. Java is Java and I don't know if I would say it "sucks." I do know between it and Ruby/Rails which one makes me about four times more productive.

davesims 15y ago
But I'll also say that crappy OOP (CROOP?) is a language-independent concern. Those guys who I talked about taking six weeks to refactor? That actually happened and they were on a Rails project.
nirvdrum 15y ago
Have you found your productivity level stays the same as a project matures? My experience has been Ruby or Python allow me to ramp up quickly, which is great, because quick wins help boost morale early on. But after 6 months or so, I found productivity roughly evened out on several projects. Right now I'm fighting with a lot of things in Ruby & Rails that I know would be trivial in Java and on the JVM. FWIW, I'm trying to cut over to JRuby to see if I can somehow benefit from the best of both worlds.
- davesims 15y ago
  I'd have to say yes, once I got comfortable with good Ruby practices I found it was as easy if not easier to keep the code clean as projects mature. Some of the code-browsing and refactoring tools aren't as smooth, but they're also not as necessary. I suspect you're dealing with concurrency issues? In that case, yes the JVM is brilliant at that and JRuby might be a great option for you. Ruby concurrency is coming along though. 1.9 is no longer green threads, and Rubinius has gotten rid of the GIL altogether.
  - nirvdrum 15y ago
    Most of the issues I've run into are environment related. I can make 1.9.2 segfault with ease, but there's mounting pressure against supporting REE. Libraries seem to rarely support backwards-compatibility, so I spend an inordinate amount of time backporting fixes or trying to upgrade a large dependency graph. And as you noted, concurrency is problematic. So, when looking at productivity, I'm not necessarily looking at the language itself, but the entire environment I need to work in. I may just be doing something grossly wrong, which is why I inquired. If it helps frame things at all, my primary project is coming up on 2 years old and started as a Rails 2.3 app that recently had a very painful upgrade to 3.1 (took on the order of 75 hours). And I had a couple years experience prior to that doing Ruby & Rails stuff.
    - davesims 15y ago
      Ah, gotcha. Yeah, config issues can be painful in many environments, and Rails has its own brand of frustrations, particularly when upgrades are concerned. This is just a shot in the dark, but if you're on REE/Passenger and getting thread/segfault issues, you might try Apache's Passenger config with the conservative spawn method. I've had similar issues in the past resolved by simply not using REE's shared memory. http://modrails.com/documentation/Users%20guide%20Apache.html#PassengerSpawnMethod http://modrails.com/documentation/Users%20guide%20Apache.htm...
      - nirvdrum 15y ago

davesims 15y ago

But I'll also say that crappy OOP (CROOP?) is a language-independent concern. Those guys who I talked about taking six weeks to refactor? That actually happened and they were on a Rails project.

nirvdrum 15y ago

Have you found your productivity level stays the same as a project matures? My experience has been Ruby or Python allow me to ramp up quickly, which is great, because quick wins help boost morale early on. But after 6 months or so, I found productivity roughly evened out on several projects. Right now I'm fighting with a lot of things in Ruby & Rails that I know would be trivial in Java and on the JVM. FWIW, I'm trying to cut over to JRuby to see if I can somehow benefit from the best of both worlds.

davesims 15y ago
I'd have to say yes, once I got comfortable with good Ruby practices I found it was as easy if not easier to keep the code clean as projects mature. Some of the code-browsing and refactoring tools aren't as smooth, but they're also not as necessary. I suspect you're dealing with concurrency issues? In that case, yes the JVM is brilliant at that and JRuby might be a great option for you. Ruby concurrency is coming along though. 1.9 is no longer green threads, and Rubinius has gotten rid of the GIL altogether.
- nirvdrum 15y ago
  Most of the issues I've run into are environment related. I can make 1.9.2 segfault with ease, but there's mounting pressure against supporting REE. Libraries seem to rarely support backwards-compatibility, so I spend an inordinate amount of time backporting fixes or trying to upgrade a large dependency graph. And as you noted, concurrency is problematic. So, when looking at productivity, I'm not necessarily looking at the language itself, but the entire environment I need to work in. I may just be doing something grossly wrong, which is why I inquired. If it helps frame things at all, my primary project is coming up on 2 years old and started as a Rails 2.3 app that recently had a very painful upgrade to 3.1 (took on the order of 75 hours). And I had a couple years experience prior to that doing Ruby & Rails stuff.
  - davesims 15y ago
    Ah, gotcha. Yeah, config issues can be painful in many environments, and Rails has its own brand of frustrations, particularly when upgrades are concerned. This is just a shot in the dark, but if you're on REE/Passenger and getting thread/segfault issues, you might try Apache's Passenger config with the conservative spawn method. I've had similar issues in the past resolved by simply not using REE's shared memory. http://modrails.com/documentation/Users%20guide%20Apache.html#PassengerSpawnMethod http://modrails.com/documentation/Users%20guide%20Apache.htm...
    - nirvdrum 15y ago