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IronRuby Manager Leaves Microsoft

blog.jimmy.schementi.com

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Re: IronRuby Manager Leaves Microsoft

#2

Post by mkn »

Possibly off-topic.

"However, a year ago the team shrunk by half and our agility was severely limited. I’m omitting the internal reasons for this, as they are the typical big-company middle-management issues every software developer has."

This is one of the things that can happen to you when you work at Microsoft. You can start thinking that the terrible work problems you face are both "typical big-company...issues" and problems that "every developer" has to face.

First, many of these issues, and especially their particular flavor, are not general to the business. Second, not every developer works for a big company. You have to get out and work elsewhere for a while to see this.

There's a minimsft.blogspot.com, but is there an equivalent for Apple? For Google? If so, are they as well known? Do they draw knowledgeable commenters from within the ranks of the host/target company?

There are many better places to work than Microsoft. The place seemed truly pathological to me.

Re: IronRuby Manager Leaves Microsoft

#4

Post by bad_user »

mkn wrote: post #2

Possibly off-topic. "However, a year ago the team shrunk by half and our agility was severely limited. I’m omitting the internal reasons for this, as they are the typical big-company middle-management issues every software developer has." This is one of the things that can happen to you when you work at Microsoft. You can start thinking that the terrible work problems you face are both "typical big-company...issues"…

> There's a minimsft.blogspot.com, but is there an equivalent for Apple? For Google? If so, are they as well known? Do they draw knowledgeable commenters from within the ranks of the host/target company?

Every corporation sucks in some way ... and if there isn't a minimsft equivalent for Google/Apple ... that's a point in Microsoft's favor.

Re: IronRuby Manager Leaves Microsoft

#5

Post by euroclydon »

Probably not that big of a deal if they stop supporting IronRuby. What's the point anyhow? Ruby is most popular because of RoR and Microsoft already has an MVC framework that works just fine. There was some very limited effort to port ASP.NET MVC to IronRuby, but it looked dead in the water to me. Plus, I hear straight up Ruby has built-in bindings for Windows, so IronRuby isn't necessary for scripting either.

Re: IronRuby Manager Leaves Microsoft

#6

Post by [deleted] »

euroclydon wrote: post #5

Probably not that big of a deal if they stop supporting IronRuby. What's the point anyhow? Ruby is most popular because of RoR and Microsoft already has an MVC framework that works just fine. There was some very limited effort to port ASP.NET MVC to IronRuby, but it looked dead in the water to me. Plus, I hear straight up Ruby has built-in bindings for Windows, so IronRuby isn't necessary for scripting either.

[deleted]

Re: IronRuby Manager Leaves Microsoft

#7

Post by DrJokepu »

I am heartbroken to hear this. .Net, the Dynamic Language Runtime, IronPython and IronRuby are incredibly awesome technologies and if instead of embracing the cool aspects, Microsoft will focus only on the boring enterprisey bits in the future I'll have no choice but stop being a .Net developer and switch to something else. Which would be a shame because I really like those technologies.

Re: IronRuby Manager Leaves Microsoft

#8

Post by ruang »

euroclydon wrote: post #5

Probably not that big of a deal if they stop supporting IronRuby. What's the point anyhow? Ruby is most popular because of RoR and Microsoft already has an MVC framework that works just fine. There was some very limited effort to port ASP.NET MVC to IronRuby, but it looked dead in the water to me. Plus, I hear straight up Ruby has built-in bindings for Windows, so IronRuby isn't necessary for scripting either.

Good point. I'm starting to convert my website from webforms into MVC and it's going to make a huge difference in terms of manageability.

Re: IronRuby Manager Leaves Microsoft

#9

Post by ruang »

Interesting that he's going to a financial technology consulting firm whose products include algorithmic trading. It seems like that would be one of the last spaces to be interested in a dynamic scripting language versus pure speed.

Re: IronRuby Manager Leaves Microsoft

#10

Post by dschobel »

euroclydon wrote: post #5

Probably not that big of a deal if they stop supporting IronRuby. What's the point anyhow? Ruby is most popular because of RoR and Microsoft already has an MVC framework that works just fine. There was some very limited effort to port ASP.NET MVC to IronRuby, but it looked dead in the water to me. Plus, I hear straight up Ruby has built-in bindings for Windows, so IronRuby isn't necessary for scripting either.

As the author points out, he's concerned about the future about dynamic languages on the .net platform in general. IronPython and IronRuby are just two implementations of it.

The reason you should care (assuming you're a .net developer) is that the DLR lets you do all sorts of cool things such as the following c# snippet calling python code:

    ScriptRuntime py = Python.CreateRuntime();
    dynamic random = py.UseFile("random.py");
 
    //Make an array of numbers
    var items = Enumerable.Range(1, 7).ToArray();
    random.shuffle(items);
(source: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/C4AndTheDynamicKeywordWhirlwin...)

Being able to have ruby, c#, python, et al all running in the same runtime with a clear stack you can inspect across the languages is awesome stuff.

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