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Ruby 2.0.0 Released

ruby-lang.org

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Re: Ruby 2.0.0 Released

#291

Post by randomsearch »

Serious question - should I learn Ruby?

I spent a little time looking at Ruby in the past. It seems like a nicely designed, clean language. However, it seems to me that it lost to Python in many domains. In addition, I've heard stories about Ruby having performance problems. For example, I heard Twitter rewrote their backend in Java/Scala because Ruby didn't perform well enough.

Recently I was at a Cloud Computing symposium thing attended by academics and industrial developers. No-one in the room was using Ruby for development anymore. Has it died? Is there any point learning it?

Re: Ruby 2.0.0 Released

#292

Post by ikailan »

randomsearch wrote: post #291

Serious question - should I learn Ruby? I spent a little time looking at Ruby in the past. It seems like a nicely designed, clean language. However, it seems to me that it lost to Python in many domains. In addition, I've heard stories about Ruby having performance problems. For example, I heard Twitter rewrote their backend in Java/Scala because Ruby didn't perform well enough. Recently I was at a Cloud Computing sy…

Learn what you want to learn, because your tools will change. Many Ruby programmers came to Ruby because of Rails. I'm part of the camp that stuck around because of JRuby for a while, but nowadays I find that I write very little Ruby and a lot more Python.

Don't worry too much about what you hear about performance. If you are building a Twitter, then yes, it might matter what language you're learning. Ruby, Python, and PHP tend to be in the same ballpark in terms of performance, with each having their own warts.

As of late, I've been most interested in golang.org. You can learn the basics in an afternoon at tour.golang.org.

Re: Ruby 2.0.0 Released

#293

Post by white_devil »

vidarh wrote: post #111
noelwelsh wrote: post #83

I do wonder about the long term success of Ruby. Rails is easily the most visible project for Ruby. Rails is big, and all that code represents a high barrier to entry for any framework in a different language that wants to compete. However, a lot of people I talk to are moving to pure JS front-end + REST backend. In this world Rails doesn't deliver any particular value (in my opinion). Ruby also has utility for doing…

As a Ruby user that finds Rails annoying and not something I like working with, I don't think that's all that relevant. A lot of people have come to Ruby because of Rails, but a lot of Ruby people dislike Rails too. There's a plethora of web frameworks for Ruby that have sprung up exactly because of people who want to use Ruby but don't like Rails. In terms for barrier to entry with Python, the issue is that a lot of…

> Pythons whitespace usage, for example, makes it DOA for me. I'm not touching it. If it works for you, great. It doesn't work for me.

So you've never even tried it? If you like YAML, SASS or CoffeeScript, you would like Python's indentation syntax too.

I think it's lovely and elegant, and that meaningful indentation should be used more. It obviates a lot of cruft and makes things clearer and more concise. What's not to love?

Seriously, it's kind of dumb if proudly holding on to your prejudices is preventing you from enjoying a lovely programming language.

Re: Ruby 2.0.0 Released

#294

Post by calinet6 »

wyuenho wrote: post #290
kamaal wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly are Python defending in a "Ruby 2.0.0 Released" thread? What is the there to defend here? The title is "Ruby 2.0.0 Released" not "Ruby 2.0.0 Released against Python". Why did the OP of this thread even question the relevance of Ruby as compared to "Python". And why is it that only Python people feel a need to do that in every thread on other languages? Its always the Python guys who do this, I never see…

Do you even know how forums work? Did you even read this thread? When I click the reply button to levels down am I replying the parent comment or the OP? The sole reason I'm here is to find out what's new and fun in Ruby. The reason I'm replying is because I see people spreading FUD again about Python's whitespace rules without anything to back it up. I've seen tons of derogatory names Java, C, C++ people call Python…

For all intensive purposes, Python and Ruby are practically equivalent. So equivalent, in fact, that we have to find absolutely pointless differences to argue about since there are no actual significant differences worth mentioning.

No one is against anyone. Python is great. Some people dislike whitespace restrictions. Who cares? Just because they dislike a characteristic of your preferred language does not mean they think it's lesser or are trying to demean or belittle it in any way. Stop arguing about it already.

As you said, "Stop living in a paranoia bubble and think everyone is against you."

Re: Ruby 2.0.0 Released

#296

Post by randomsearch »

ikailan wrote: post #292
randomsearch wrote: post #291

Serious question - should I learn Ruby? I spent a little time looking at Ruby in the past. It seems like a nicely designed, clean language. However, it seems to me that it lost to Python in many domains. In addition, I've heard stories about Ruby having performance problems. For example, I heard Twitter rewrote their backend in Java/Scala because Ruby didn't perform well enough. Recently I was at a Cloud Computing sy…

Learn what you want to learn, because your tools will change. Many Ruby programmers came to Ruby because of Rails. I'm part of the camp that stuck around because of JRuby for a while, but nowadays I find that I write very little Ruby and a lot more Python. Don't worry too much about what you hear about performance. If you are building a Twitter, then yes, it might matter what language you're learning. Ruby, Python, a…

Cool, thanks. Actually, Go was an alternative I was considering for my next language. More worthy than Ruby? Is it a possible Python replacement?

Re: Ruby 2.0.0 Released

#297

Post by fersho311 »

I was stuck on this for a few hours, so hopefully this might help someone. If you are install ruby 2.0.0 with rvm, make sure you do rvm get head before doing rvm install 2.0.0 or rvm reinstall 2.0.0

Re: Ruby 2.0.0 Released

#298

Post by Tomte »

pifflesnort wrote: post #288
Tomte wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course "you don't implement caching". I think it was clear that I was talking about designing a cache-aware application. Cf. http://www.mnot.net/cache_docs/ .

Yes, and I was talking about implementing caching of components used to compose the pages and API responses, not a full HTTP cache tier that has to be placed in front of your application.

Okay, then I misunderstood where you were getting at. My fault.

Re: Ruby 2.0.0 Released

#299

Post by grey-area »

Mon_Ouie wrote: post #282
grey-area wrote: post #116

There are some nice features here: Keyword arguments, which give flexibility to API design This looks good to replace all those options hashes in rails for example, though I wish they'd made it an all or nothing thing, apparently you can still do this: def foo(x, str: "foo", num: 424242) i.e. use some named and some unnamed in the same method which looks ugly. Module#prepend, which is a new way to extend a class Comp…

A very common use case for Module#prepend is for mixins that want to decorate methods. For example, say I have a class that can process stuff, and a mixin that attempts to log calls to the #process method: class Processor def process puts "Very important stuff here" end end module Logger def process puts "Entering process." super puts "Leaving process." end end If you just ``include Logger`` in Processor it won't wor…

Thanks for the example.

Re: Ruby 2.0.0 Released

#300

Post by michaelwww »

ubernostrum wrote: post #280
michaelwww wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer my white space to not mean anything because I normally can't see it. If I show white space then I see meaningful and non-meaningful white space. I find this aggravating and figure the designer of such a language is a control freak who will likely continue to aggravate me in other stupid ways. I don't need this in my life. I don't know how this disagreement between myself and the language designer seems 'supe…

ialsoagreewiththisandfindthatshowingwhitespaceisacompletelyunnecessarythingandonlygetsinthewayofhowawesomelysmartiamtobeabletoreadallthecodeiwrotewithoutanywhitespaceinit

We're talking about white space as a source code token, not as used in written verbal languages.
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