4 ms·

This is predicated on the assumption that Ruby matters, present & future. While I love Ruby, and use it for most code I don't write in Javascript, I can't help

by lsb 18y ago

This is predicated on the assumption that Ruby matters, present & future. While I love Ruby, and use it for most code I don't write in Javascript, I can't help but wonder if in 10 years' time Ruby will look as big and bloated and arcane as Perl does now, and some new upstart will have all the mindshare.

sho 18y ago
You say that like it's a bad thing! If there was a viable young upstart which was better enough to seriously start stealing Rubyists away (perhaps a "Ruby for functional programming"?) then wouldn't that be a net gain for the world? I love Ruby but I hope it's irrelevant in 10 years' time, because we've all moved onto something unambiguously better. Think of how much more productive we'll be! : )
- lsb 18y ago
  Alan Kay, in his Turing award lecture: A couple of years ago we started this project called Squeak, which is simply not an attempt to give the world a free Smalltalk, but an attempt to give the world a bootstrapping mechanism for something much better than Smalltalk, and when you fool around with Squeak, please, please, think of it from that standpoint. Think of how you can obsolete the damn thing by using its own mechanisms for getting the next version of itself.
  - sho 18y ago
    Inspiring words from a great man! I think the concept of code generation is yet to sink in to the mainstream programming world, but one might expect it to have a huge impact when it does. Especially in the emerging world of distributed programming.
berntb 18y ago
On the other hand, in ten years there might be something similar to CPAN and less complaints about lack of speed and memory leaks... :-)
petercooper 18y ago
While I love Ruby, and use it for most code I don't write in Javascript, I can't help but wonder if in 10 years' time Ruby will look as big and bloated and arcane as Perl does now, and some new upstart will have all the mindshare. That has no relevance to the present. That's like the argument against upgrading your computer because the parts you buy will be outperformed by newer parts on the horizon. Eventually you have to settle for a while, and plenty of people are settled on Ruby for now.

by lsb 18y ago

sho 18y ago

You say that like it's a bad thing! If there was a viable young upstart which was better enough to seriously start stealing Rubyists away (perhaps a "Ruby for functional programming"?) then wouldn't that be a net gain for the world? I love Ruby but I hope it's irrelevant in 10 years' time, because we've all moved onto something unambiguously better. Think of how much more productive we'll be! : )

lsb 18y ago
Alan Kay, in his Turing award lecture: A couple of years ago we started this project called Squeak, which is simply not an attempt to give the world a free Smalltalk, but an attempt to give the world a bootstrapping mechanism for something much better than Smalltalk, and when you fool around with Squeak, please, please, think of it from that standpoint. Think of how you can obsolete the damn thing by using its own mechanisms for getting the next version of itself.
- sho 18y ago
  Inspiring words from a great man! I think the concept of code generation is yet to sink in to the mainstream programming world, but one might expect it to have a huge impact when it does. Especially in the emerging world of distributed programming.

berntb 18y ago

On the other hand, in ten years there might be something similar to CPAN and less complaints about lack of speed and memory leaks... :-)

petercooper 18y ago

While I love Ruby, and use it for most code I don't write in Javascript, I can't help but wonder if in 10 years' time Ruby will look as big and bloated and arcane as Perl does now, and some new upstart will have all the mindshare. That has no relevance to the present. That's like the argument against upgrading your computer because the parts you buy will be outperformed by newer parts on the horizon. Eventually you have to settle for a while, and plenty of people are settled on Ruby for now.