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Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

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Re: Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

#181
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People always say development is faster in a dynamically typed language, this is not my experience. You need to actually run the program and step into it with a debugger in order to determine the type of anything at run time. You just develop on the running program... If you just write it in your editor, run, check for errors, stop, edit more, run, stop, etc... then yes, you don't gain anything.

> You just develop on the running program... Ah yes, don't worry about correctness at all, just wing it. I take it you haven't had to debug some of the stuff you've written?

>I take it you haven't had to debug some of the stuff you've written?

Most Ruby devs work as contractors. They deliver the software and go to the next paying contract. They don't have to live with their software. :)

Re: Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

#182

I’d like to use this to voice my appreciation for Ruby. Its ergonomics, flexibility, elegance and power continue to bring me joy and make me smarter every day. It is incredibly malleable and yet pure. It carries a certain warmth and kindness that permeate its community. It becomes faster every couple of years :) I feel so grateful to work with a language that makes me feel like a wizard and look forward to writing co…

I second this. There's something about the language that makes the community incredibly welcoming (or is it vice versa?)

Whereas the impression I get of the javascript community is that everyone is paranoid about doing the hottest new thing, like "oh you're still using x? how quaint, haven't you heard everyone is using y now?"

Re: Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

#183
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started using dynamic languages since around 2008 (Python and Javascript). Before that I was more into C/C++. Granted, I've only written C in University settings where I'm writing small programs. I had no idea how to write "real" programs. But with Python and Javascript it felt like I could more easily write "real" programs. What I found out is that I quickly burned out. Around 2011 I felt like I don't know how to…

Have you wrangled with JSON using Go? Absolutely dreadful. Have you written multiple microservices in Go? The lack of an opinionated framework often means that each microservice contains code that is organized in its own unique ad-hoc way with lots of repeated boiler-plate code. The learning-curve to understand how each service's code is organized gets old fast. With Ruby and with RoR I never have to waste time with…

I'm the different guy but here is my opnion:

>Have you wrangled with JSON using Go? Absolutely dreadful.

No it is not. You just take a json object, put it down as Go struct. Yes, it takes more time unlike in JS or Ruby but it makes this code much more readable. You can open a project and see what kind of json it expects as an input. All contracts are there. Not need for any kind of schemas or yml definitions (though you can generate one if you need to).

>Have you written multiple microservices in Go?

We currectlly have more than a hundred of those. The lack of an opinionated framework is a bad thing only from the management point of view. Once you and your team is done with this - there is really no difference from using a framework.

Again - yes, it requires more time and most likely not a great option for a small company without a developed background (ie no preferred ways for doing different kind of things) but no a problem for a relatively big company. We have a number of teams solving different problems and thus using different ways of building their services (micro or not).

>With Ruby and with RoR I never have to waste time with this and I can get straight to the business logic.

Yes, until you face a problem were your favourite gem is not enough to do the job and you have to go the hacky root.

PS: But honestly this whole topic is getting old. I've build apps in both Ruby (mostly not Rails though, we've had Roda) and Go and while RoR\Ruby\etc are great for one set of tasks I'd never use them for some other tasks. For example systems integrations which is my main job for the last ~5 years.

People often forget the web dev is not just your clients' browser to server communication.

Re: Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

#184
I think this article missed a key element of where ruby is going: developer productivity tools.

It is kind of hinted at with static typing, but the real story behind a lot of what happened since ruby 3 was released has been the tools and IDE plugins around it. Static Typing via RBS is also the existing LSP integration + VSCode plugin, the Typeprof plugin which allows scaffolding .rbs files for untyped modules, and the new debugger which will ship with 3.1, finally a core-blessed debugger, but above all, a debugger one can integrate with docker and IDE.

I'm expecting more of this in the future, such as a production-ready profiler, better tracing, overall better monitoring.

Re: Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

#185
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ruby on rails still hasn't peaked yet so I'm not sure what you mean by the tail end. Rust micro services might be the new trend for big tech but there would be more rails apps in development now than there ever has been.

> Rust micro services might be the new trend Golang is the trend. (I don't have any opinion in either Golang or Rust; but most jobs out there are looking for Golang microservice deployed in K8S)

We are writing microservices in .NET. I don't quiet like using Go since it is very verbose and it's more time consuming compared to C# to accomplish anything. Performance wise, .NET is as good as Go.

I would see Go being more usable for DevOps tasks, writing pipelines, programming infrastructure and such.

If performance would be the most important thing, then I would consider Rust.

Re: Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

#186
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it comes to code, I'm fairly certain "correctness" is in fact an irrefutable advantage. The argument has always been whether or not the price of that correctness is too high. But at this point if you're using a modern IDE / code editor (e.g. VSCode), it's actually easier to write statically typed code because the inference / auto-completion / etc is so much better when you do. At least with TypeScript in VSCode.

> it's actually easier to write statically typed code because the inference / auto-completion / etc is so much better when you do. Ruby has a pretty nice language server, nice linter, REPL (Pry), many other tools. The best development experience IMO is still stuff like SLIME or Smalltalk environments. "Intellisence" just makes using statically typed languages bearable. It's not a unique feature.

Intellisense will allow you to do explorative programming, finding what method is callable on a given object. It’s much easier to look up n methods than to try to guess what is the whole state of the program where it may accept this and that, where even in the best case you might get a fraction of what a statically typed language’s autocompletion allows for.

Like just seriously try intellij with java and pycharm for a php code.

Re: Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

#187
post #19
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I'd use a typed language if I wanted one.

I think the general point the above commenter is trying to make is that not all typed languages are equivalent: i.e. if you're avoiding TS/typed ruby/etc. because you don't want something like Haskell/Java, then that's not a well-informed decision as they're (all) radically different approaches to static typing, each with their own unique benefits and drawbacks.

TS is nothing like Java nor Haskell. Nor Rust.

(I can't personally speak to Ruby/Pony yet)

Re: Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

#188

This is really cool. I’ve used a number of languages and dabbled in a few frameworks but nothing I’ve used brings me joy like ruby does. I approach programming creatively. I think in large systems and architecture. Ruby allows me to skip worrying about the details. Code blocks abstract away thinking about loops and just focus on data. Just about every array operation I could want is there, waiting for a code block. I…

I like your honesty.

I’ve bounced around over the years and I’m doing a lot of Python now. It’s funny You said that about “loops” because I do feel like I’m always looping something in Python ha

Re: Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is exactly how I feel as well. Though, maybe I’ll come around once I learn TS better? I recently had to use it on a new project. TS was, quite literally, a nightmare. I was amazed how less efficient and how much longer things took. We probably spent 20% of our time writing JS and 80% trying to figure out how to get TS to stop complaining.

Using a tool that you don’t understand is always like that, and is frankly foolish. I don’t know why we as a group so adamant of sitting down and properly learning something, and only form an opinion on that after we did that.

Re: Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Honestly I don't get why some people want to move to static types I don't understand how anyone that has experience with dynamically typed languages and the insane runtime errors that can result from them would ever consider using a dynamically typed language. It's terrible and it actually provides little to no benefit in development speed. People always say development is faster in a dynamically typed language, th…

>Given the popularity of typescript and how nearly all major internet companies have moved to typed versions of their dynamically typed languages it's clear to me the whole dynamic typing experiment has failed absolutely miserably. Python is one of the most popular programming languages.

Because there is a huge amount of non-programmers using it for single-use code.
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