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The Cancers In The Ruby Community

blog.txustice.me

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Re: The Cancers In The Ruby Community

#51

Post by paulhauggis »

salimmadjd wrote: post #22

Maybe because rails is like a religion-based on faith. As an old-timer who started web programming on perl/cgi I've always found rails programmers rather arrogant and a bit off-putting. I say rails because this seems to be the main driver behind Ruby's growth. Rails seems to work magically for first-timers and without knowing what's happening it allows anyone to build sophisticated web applications. It basically expe…

This seems to be the case especially with the Rails community. I'm glad I'm not the only one that notice.

I've met developers in many of the other communities (if you can call it that), and I generally don't get along with the people that use Rails.

Many are arrogant and close-minded. I'm not sure why these types of people are attracted to the Rails language.

I've also noticed lots of English majors/writers/non-developers that love to use Rails.

For me, this hasn't been the case for things like Python, PHP, or any other language.

Re: The Cancers In The Ruby Community

#52

Post by txus »

sleight42 wrote: post #38
txus wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't mean to give a bad impression of Ruby. I think (and many people have pointed out) that the problems I outline are valid for many developer communities, if not all of them. In the end, those communities are human, and share a good amount of our defects.

You do the Ruby community that you seek to improve a disservice when you use a title that troll baitish. In fairness, you're not the only one I see doing this. There are many bloggers who use the same tactic. I have occasionally been guilty of this in the past though I cautiously avoid the practice now. More specifically, have you attended any regional Ruby conferences? It is almost certainly a community unto itself:…

I am currently organizing the Barcelona Ruby Conference, and have attended many other conferences in Europe. I know a lot of people put much effort in doing things right. But that's not the majority of the community, unfortunately. I also agree that the Pareto principle (and many other points raised in my post) are a universal problem, not just Ruby's.

I did provide constructive advice. If you read the post thoroughly, you can see a call to improve our learning manners, stay away from hot trends, and even a simple pattern you can use in your day to day to compare technologies, or to understand better some debates (like threads-processes-reactors).

Re: The Cancers In The Ruby Community

#53

Post by txus »

clivestaples wrote: post #41
txus wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't mean to give a bad impression of Ruby. I think (and many people have pointed out) that the problems I outline are valid for many developer communities, if not all of them. In the end, those communities are human, and share a good amount of our defects.

Did it really not occur to you that an overly-dramatic lament, with f-bombs and references to cancer, might give a bad impression? There is really very little excuse for Rubyists to have so little awareness, especially if they hope to overcome the stigma they are so worried about...

I'm really proud that so far no one has argued about any point I make in the article, but rather about the "cancer" reference and the swearing at the end. I guess that means I happened to write a pretty damn good article.

Re: The Cancers In The Ruby Community

#54

Post by txus »

nupark2 wrote: post #42
txus wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't see the point because of the "harsh language" then I apologize, I might publish a politically correct version for you then :)

The harsh language doesn't convey the point at all. It's an appeal to emotion, and has no place in a rational argument.

This is not (only) a rational argument, but a call to action, and that requires an appeal to emotion.

Re: The Cancers In The Ruby Community

#55

Post by txus »

nupark2 wrote: post #46
txus wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like a tattoo, it shouldn't distract critical thinkers when judging the contents and the point of my argument.

In a discipline such as computer science, appeals to emotion are inherently untrustworthy and distracting. A reader shouldn't have to shift through pandering rhetoric to find the kernel of a supportable argument.

My article has nothing to do with computer science, but with a human community built around a technology.

Re: The Cancers In The Ruby Community

#56

Post by txus »

sycr wrote: post #37

And with that, I'm getting back to work. I enjoy writing with Ruby, and Rails has made web development a joy for me. Beyond that, I don't find these kinds of things interesting in the least. I'd wager that most of its user base (Ruby that is) feels much the same way.

The 80% I was talking about.

Re: The Cancers In The Ruby Community

#57

Post by knowtheory »

lbrite wrote: post #48
mechanical_fish wrote: post #18

Some incidental writerly advice: Avoid using the word cancer metaphorically, unless you're deliberately trying to parody the writing style of, say, Adolf Hitler. Otherwise it's like trying to use a howitzer to dig postholes in your yard. I first began to notice the dangerous power of this word when I was working in cancer research. To a cancer researcher, cancer is a thing one deals with all day long, but at a very s…

I appreciate your feelings based on your personal experience with this terrible disease. I do however feel this reply and subsequent replies on this topic completely unwarranted. The word cancer has been adopted into the English language to mean an evil condition or thing that spreads destructively. The article makes no reference to the medical condition, nor the star sign, nor the tropics of. I don't care much for t…

I don't think you appreciate what mechanical_fish was trying to communicate.

First off, the comparison to Hitler is not hyperbole or misapplied metaphor. Hitler literally compared the Jews to cancer, please see: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1233707/Hitlers-hatr...

Second, it's not clear to me that you do appreciate mechanical_fish's feelings. His point is that cancer is an outsized, heavy word, and regardless of the author's intent, the word has connotations that neither you nor the author can shake loose from the word.

Re: The Cancers In The Ruby Community

#58

Post by knowtheory »

txus wrote: post #53
clivestaples wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did it really not occur to you that an overly-dramatic lament, with f-bombs and references to cancer, might give a bad impression? There is really very little excuse for Rubyists to have so little awareness, especially if they hope to overcome the stigma they are so worried about...

I'm really proud that so far no one has argued about any point I make in the article, but rather about the "cancer" reference and the swearing at the end. I guess that means I happened to write a pretty damn good article.

Oh I can oblige you there.

Please, explain to me the difference between "following trends blindly" and "learning from older developers' experience"?

Because both of them look remarkably like cargo-culting appeals to authority.

Folks constantly rant about the reinvention of the wheel, but i think they're missing the point. Everyone talks about how wonderful it is that digital and web-based technologies allow for rapid prototyping and failing fast which in turn results in the ability to experiment.

And then they turn around and criticize people for experimenting accusing them of not learning from their elders or whatever. Learning is a process. You learn by doing. Even if you have to rediscover what other folks have discovered in the past.

Re: The Cancers In The Ruby Community

#59

Post by txus »

knowtheory wrote: post #57
lbrite wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate your feelings based on your personal experience with this terrible disease. I do however feel this reply and subsequent replies on this topic completely unwarranted. The word cancer has been adopted into the English language to mean an evil condition or thing that spreads destructively. The article makes no reference to the medical condition, nor the star sign, nor the tropics of. I don't care much for t…

I don't think you appreciate what mechanical_fish was trying to communicate. First off, the comparison to Hitler is not hyperbole or misapplied metaphor. Hitler literally compared the Jews to cancer, please see: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1233707/Hitlers-hatr... Second, it's not clear to me that you do appreciate mechanical_fish's feelings. His point is that cancer is an outsized, heavy word, and regardl…

I chose that word on purpose because of both its semantic and emotional power. Besides, I'm pretty happy that all the critics have been focused on either using the term "cancer" or the swearing at the end, so I guess my points are valid to almost everyone, and you just didn't like the way I expressed them. That sound ok.

Re: The Cancers In The Ruby Community

#60

Post by txus »

knowtheory wrote: post #58
txus wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really proud that so far no one has argued about any point I make in the article, but rather about the "cancer" reference and the swearing at the end. I guess that means I happened to write a pretty damn good article.

Oh I can oblige you there. Please, explain to me the difference between "following trends blindly" and "learning from older developers' experience"? Because both of them look remarkably like cargo-culting appeals to authority. Folks constantly rant about the reinvention of the wheel, but i think they're missing the point. Everyone talks about how wonderful it is that digital and web-based technologies allow for rapid…

Experimenting is good. I do it all the time. Just take a look at my repos on Github. Just a few of them are conceptually (and arguably) "new", while the others are just exercises to learn about new things. Experimenting about things, even about the basic ones, helps me a lot in my learning process. At a personal level.

But when you watch the bigger picture, with companies actually building software for clients that trust them, then choosing technology is a delicate, non-trivial matter. It's important, and I mean in actual dollars (or euros). There is where the expertise of older developers, people who have founded, sold or shut down profitable and unprofitable companies, who have worked in a gazilion of projects and made a lot of expensive mistakes, there is where that expertise comes to play. They can enlighten the sometimes childish, faction-like debates about technology that keep repeating themselves over and over. That can free us to think about new problems and new things, based on past experience. That's how science advances, and that's how software development advances too, in my opinion.

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