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Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

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Re: Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

#11

Post by kayodelycaon »

eloisius wrote: post #6

The RBS files seem like a weird compromise to me. I I'm not sure I see the practical benefit, but maybe someone who has used .d.ts files can explain it. Is it just helpful if your IDE has tooling to use it? Seems like it could be helpful, but also sounds like it will become an annoying "code quality" hoop those of us that don't use VSCode will have to jump through for little benefit. When you read code outside of you…

I tend to use guard statements in ruby methods to prevent invalid input. It helps people understand how the method is supposed to be used while also failing early with an obvious error, rather than late with a cryptic one.

If there was a way to do a type signatures inline without making things ugly, I would use them. Optionally enforcing @param and @return comments would be good enough for me. A separate file is useless for me because I don’t use an IDE.

Re: Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

#12

Post by eropple »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #8

Honestly I don't get why some people want to move to static types. Ruby is a dynamic language, that's the point of it... Giant orgs can just use Java or something. We need some languages to stay productive for those of us who work solo or in small groups. If I wanted static types I'd use Java, Go or something (probably Haskell).

This is a set of statements that strike me as pretty unreflective of the state of things these days. I have slung a lot of Ruby in my life and I literally-not-figuratively stopped the second I laid my hands on TypeScript because we've hit the point where gradual static typing is both easily available and super easy to work with. (And there's also Rust, which can scratch a whole different set of itches that I don't happen to personally have.)

If your idea of static typing is Java or Go or "something", if your idea of it is that it's for "giant orgs" and not improving your own correctness and throughput of code (I write better code, faster, in TypeScript than I ever did in Ruby!), yeah, it might not make sense. But that's a pretty out-of-date take, I think, and the wins the suitably plastic individual can get, even on a solo or small-team project, are significant.

Re: Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

#13

Post by kayodelycaon »

mwint wrote: post #10
Mikeb85 wrote: post #8

Honestly I don't get why some people want to move to static types. Ruby is a dynamic language, that's the point of it... Giant orgs can just use Java or something. We need some languages to stay productive for those of us who work solo or in small groups. If I wanted static types I'd use Java, Go or something (probably Haskell).

Mostly, I really want Rails in a typed language.

That would be nice. There are so many attempt to clone it and the clones are always missing some important piece of what makes rails rails. Lack of good, heavily integrated libraries is a universal failure of all of the ones I’ve seen.

Re: Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

#14

Post by eropple »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #11
eloisius wrote: post #6

The RBS files seem like a weird compromise to me. I I'm not sure I see the practical benefit, but maybe someone who has used .d.ts files can explain it. Is it just helpful if your IDE has tooling to use it? Seems like it could be helpful, but also sounds like it will become an annoying "code quality" hoop those of us that don't use VSCode will have to jump through for little benefit. When you read code outside of you…

I tend to use guard statements in ruby methods to prevent invalid input. It helps people understand how the method is supposed to be used while also failing early with an obvious error, rather than late with a cryptic one. If there was a way to do a type signatures inline without making things ugly, I would use them. Optionally enforcing @param and @return comments would be good enough for me. A separate file is usel…

You might not use "an IDE", but you can get language server support for a ton of languages in almost any text editor worth using these days. There are Vim LSP plugins for TypeScript, even.

Re: Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

#15

Post by truly_not_next »

mwint wrote: post #10
Mikeb85 wrote: post #8

Honestly I don't get why some people want to move to static types. Ruby is a dynamic language, that's the point of it... Giant orgs can just use Java or something. We need some languages to stay productive for those of us who work solo or in small groups. If I wanted static types I'd use Java, Go or something (probably Haskell).

Mostly, I really want Rails in a typed language.

Redwood does this in TypeScript

Re: Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

#16

Post by austinthetaco »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #8

Honestly I don't get why some people want to move to static types. Ruby is a dynamic language, that's the point of it... Giant orgs can just use Java or something. We need some languages to stay productive for those of us who work solo or in small groups. If I wanted static types I'd use Java, Go or something (probably Haskell).

I really feel the same about javascript with typescript. It feels a heck of a lot like new grads or old c#/java devs trying to keep up with the times by switching to javascript, but then resisting the code structure and loose typings.

Re: Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

#17

Post by whakim »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #8

Honestly I don't get why some people want to move to static types. Ruby is a dynamic language, that's the point of it... Giant orgs can just use Java or something. We need some languages to stay productive for those of us who work solo or in small groups. If I wanted static types I'd use Java, Go or something (probably Haskell).

Ruby isn't forcing you to use static types. That being said, I actually think something like Sorbet makes even solo/small teams more productive because it trades some additional time writing boilerplate for dramatically reducing the number of bugs you write.

Re: Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

#18

Post by jamesfinlayson »

eloisius wrote: post #6

The RBS files seem like a weird compromise to me. I I'm not sure I see the practical benefit, but maybe someone who has used .d.ts files can explain it. Is it just helpful if your IDE has tooling to use it? Seems like it could be helpful, but also sounds like it will become an annoying "code quality" hoop those of us that don't use VSCode will have to jump through for little benefit. When you read code outside of you…

Having used inline typing in PHP and Python I don't really see the benefit of putting it in a separate file either, but when I was reading about it earlier in the year it sounded like Matz wanted types relegated to a separate file, so that's what happened.

Re: Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

#19

Post by Mikeb85 »

eropple wrote: post #12
Mikeb85 wrote: post #8

Honestly I don't get why some people want to move to static types. Ruby is a dynamic language, that's the point of it... Giant orgs can just use Java or something. We need some languages to stay productive for those of us who work solo or in small groups. If I wanted static types I'd use Java, Go or something (probably Haskell).

This is a set of statements that strike me as pretty unreflective of the state of things these days. I have slung a lot of Ruby in my life and I literally-not-figuratively stopped the second I laid my hands on TypeScript because we've hit the point where gradual static typing is both easily available and super easy to work with . (And there's also Rust, which can scratch a whole different set of itches that I don't h…

The static languages I've used most are actually Haskell and recently Pony (mostly for things that involve a bunch of maths and processing in parallel). Just brought Go/Java up because it seems everyone is trying to turn every language into those.

I don't want Ruby to become another TS because I'd use a typed language if I wanted one. The problems I use Ruby for don't need the speed of a statically typed language and it's nice using a dynamic one for.

Re: Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

#20

Post by Mikeb85 »

mwint wrote: post #10
Mikeb85 wrote: post #8

Honestly I don't get why some people want to move to static types. Ruby is a dynamic language, that's the point of it... Giant orgs can just use Java or something. We need some languages to stay productive for those of us who work solo or in small groups. If I wanted static types I'd use Java, Go or something (probably Haskell).

Mostly, I really want Rails in a typed language.

There's a reason it didn't come from a typed language... It uses a lot of dynamic features and metaprogramming.
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