Live data from Hacker News

Engine Yard's sponsorship of RVM is coming to an end

rvm.io

41–50 of 72 posts

Re: Engine Yard's sponsorship of RVM is coming to an end

#41
post #10

I hate (yes, it's that strong a word) the problems related to versioning in Ruby ... and even with RVM, you have to figure out which gems are compatible. My solution is to get rid of my Ruby applications. I'm not a Ruby developer, and my career path isn't likely to afford me the time to really learn it. I'm a Java developer, and we have our own version of dependency hell (that I've learned to avoid and/or navigate),…

> often issues like dependency management (there are others) simply cause marginal developers to leave. I think that's true, and true in just about every language/environment, it's not unique to ruby, right? Dependency management often causes marginal developers to leave, in many langauges/environments. Dependency management itself has gotten a lot better in ruby -- bundler is pretty great. But multiple ruby version…

Just saying but dependency management in PHP is pretty great. The only thing I need to really worry about is where the library requires a PHP version higher then mine.

I have yet to have trouble with composer packages to the extent I have trouble with basic ruby gems. The funny part is when you get gems that require multiple versions of the same gem. That just makes me laugh :)

Re: Engine Yard's sponsorship of RVM is coming to an end

#42
Here we go again. We've got companies building skytowers using the steel and concrete we fund with bake sales. Our most important open source projects are dependent on corporate philanthropy that can disappear overnight.

We can debate the merits of RVM/chruby/rbenv yet all agree that open source version management projects are essential infrastructure for Ruby. Sure, we're grateful that EY funded RVM (and other projects) for so long. But what now?

I contributed $50 to the RVM Bountysource campaign.But a one-shot charitable fundraiser is a slim reed on which to sustain a project like this. Tens of thousands of developers use RVM. And the companies they work for spend millions to develop businesses that could not be be built without the infrastructure provided by open source projects such as RVM. It's skytowers funded by bake sales.

Re: Engine Yard's sponsorship of RVM is coming to an end

#43

Here we go again. We've got companies building skytowers using the steel and concrete we fund with bake sales. Our most important open source projects are dependent on corporate philanthropy that can disappear overnight. We can debate the merits of RVM/chruby/rbenv yet all agree that open source version management projects are essential infrastructure for Ruby. Sure, we're grateful that EY funded RVM (and other proje…

Welp there are people trying to address this, https://www.gittip.com/ for instance.

Re: Engine Yard's sponsorship of RVM is coming to an end

#44
post #10

I hate (yes, it's that strong a word) the problems related to versioning in Ruby ... and even with RVM, you have to figure out which gems are compatible. My solution is to get rid of my Ruby applications. I'm not a Ruby developer, and my career path isn't likely to afford me the time to really learn it. I'm a Java developer, and we have our own version of dependency hell (that I've learned to avoid and/or navigate),…

> often issues like dependency management (there are others) simply cause marginal developers to leave. I think that's true, and true in just about every language/environment, it's not unique to ruby, right? Dependency management often causes marginal developers to leave, in many langauges/environments. Dependency management itself has gotten a lot better in ruby -- bundler is pretty great. But multiple ruby version…

> I wish bundler was more integrated with rubygems, which would for instance make the `bundle exec` dance unneccesary.

https://github.com/mpapis/rubygems-bundler

Re: Engine Yard's sponsorship of RVM is coming to an end

#46

So Engine Yard ends their support of JRuby in 2012. Then, just a few weeks ago, they end support for Rubinius. Now, they'll be ending support for RVM next week... A shift in strategy? Financial troubles? Either way, it seems they need to update their "Engine Yard Loves Open Source" page: https://www.engineyard.com/community/open-source

Oh how fickle you are. A company that supports an open source project out of pocket for two years now doesn't love open source because they have moved onto other things? Over time, technologies change, stabilize, and/or become obsolete, expecting them to support one project forever is silly and boring. How about: dear Engine Yard, thanks for 730 days of open source love, can't wait to see where you invest your time n…

amen.

Re: Engine Yard's sponsorship of RVM is coming to an end

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> often issues like dependency management (there are others) simply cause marginal developers to leave. I think that's true, and true in just about every language/environment, it's not unique to ruby, right? Dependency management often causes marginal developers to leave, in many langauges/environments. Dependency management itself has gotten a lot better in ruby -- bundler is pretty great. But multiple ruby version…

Just saying but dependency management in PHP is pretty great. The only thing I need to really worry about is where the library requires a PHP version higher then mine. I have yet to have trouble with composer packages to the extent I have trouble with basic ruby gems. The funny part is when you get gems that require multiple versions of the same gem. That just makes me laugh :)

It's awfully brave of you to come out and say that around these parts. Suggesting that PHP gets anything right tends to bring out lots of people ready to tell you why you're WRONG wrong wrong wrong WRONG.

I think you're right, mind you. Actually, for all of its other quirks and misfeatures, PHP has probably given me the least difficulty with dependency management over the last decade. (Granted, that's in part because before Composer took off all we really had was PEAR, and it never seemed to grab much mindshare.)

Re: Engine Yard's sponsorship of RVM is coming to an end

#48

Here we go again. We've got companies building skytowers using the steel and concrete we fund with bake sales. Our most important open source projects are dependent on corporate philanthropy that can disappear overnight. We can debate the merits of RVM/chruby/rbenv yet all agree that open source version management projects are essential infrastructure for Ruby. Sure, we're grateful that EY funded RVM (and other proje…

Welp there are people trying to address this, https://www.gittip.com/ for instance.

Gittip is chump change.

The amount of money raised so far for rvm's current crowdfunding is about the amount that the top receiver on Gittip might get in 20 weeks. https://www.gittip.com/

You say Gittip is trying. That's true, but I think they slipped into a slow growth pattern months ago. At its current rate it would take years for it to be a viable way of funding more than a handful of open source hackers.

Re: Engine Yard's sponsorship of RVM is coming to an end

#49

So Engine Yard ends their support of JRuby in 2012. Then, just a few weeks ago, they end support for Rubinius. Now, they'll be ending support for RVM next week... A shift in strategy? Financial troubles? Either way, it seems they need to update their "Engine Yard Loves Open Source" page: https://www.engineyard.com/community/open-source

Oh how fickle you are. A company that supports an open source project out of pocket for two years now doesn't love open source because they have moved onto other things? Over time, technologies change, stabilize, and/or become obsolete, expecting them to support one project forever is silly and boring. How about: dear Engine Yard, thanks for 730 days of open source love, can't wait to see where you invest your time n…

I don't disagree, which is why I'm wondering if this is a case of not having enough money to continue supporting these projects, or a case of seeing the momentum or the need for support in open source changing to something new. So far, though, I've only seen Engine Yard drop support for projects. If, tomorrow, they announced that they were starting to support a handful of Go or node.js projects, then I think we'd all have a much different view on this news.

Re: Engine Yard's sponsorship of RVM is coming to an end

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welp there are people trying to address this, https://www.gittip.com/ for instance.

Gittip is chump change. The amount of money raised so far for rvm's current crowdfunding is about the amount that the top receiver on Gittip might get in 20 weeks. https://www.gittip.com/ You say Gittip is trying. That's true, but I think they slipped into a slow growth pattern months ago. At its current rate it would take years for it to be a viable way of funding more than a handful of open source hackers.

> The amount of money raised so far for rvm's current crowdfunding is about the amount that the top receiver on Gittip might get in 20 weeks. https://www.gittip.com/

That is not a technical problem, that is a social one. The OP said

> But a one-shot charitable fundraiser is a slim reed on which to sustain a project like this.

And he is correct, the gittip style is probably better for long-term but faces problems as you pointed out, although again, I do not think any of them are technical in nature.

(Probably the biggest problem being the complete lack of companies on gittip et al and the feeble amounts, in terms of companies' budgets anyway.)

Post reply on HN