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Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

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Re: Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

#141

Post by karmasimida »

joelbluminator wrote: post #140
karmasimida wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bet one entire language's future on a single framework isn't working very well I guess. It is 2021, web frameworks are ... one of the solved problems. Polyglot is the future, and people are already adapting

> Polyglot is the future, and people are already adapting Yes, right. I like how you can read into the future. Let's see what happens 10-20 years from now, things tend to change. But even if we look at how things are now, plenty of places still commit to 1-2 languages (in fact if you're a small shop it's pretty crazy to try anything else).

> plenty of places still commit to 1-2 languages

That might be true, but it didn't mean they will commit to ONE language for forever. Even governmental agency's code gets rewritten in newer languages eventually:

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/apn/automated-refactoring-of-a-...

Re: Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

#142

Post by joelbluminator »

jb3689 wrote: post #129
kayodelycaon wrote: post #4

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…

> Then there is Rails. Nothing even comes close Have you tried Phoenix? It's really close. It's better in some ways. The data layer is quite different however. As much as I like Ruby, Elixir made a lot of things I liked about Ruby better

Are you happy with the way things are going for Elixir? It seemed to me like the Elixir community was hoping for it to become the next Ruby and I don't see that happening anymore. It will have to settle for being a well respected but obscure piece of tech, kinda like what Erlang is.

Re: Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

#143

Post by joelbluminator »

karmasimida wrote: post #141
joelbluminator wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Polyglot is the future, and people are already adapting Yes, right. I like how you can read into the future. Let's see what happens 10-20 years from now, things tend to change. But even if we look at how things are now, plenty of places still commit to 1-2 languages (in fact if you're a small shop it's pretty crazy to try anything else).

> plenty of places still commit to 1-2 languages That might be true, but it didn't mean they will commit to ONE language for forever. Even governmental agency's code gets rewritten in newer languages eventually: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/apn/automated-refactoring-of-a-...

C, Java, Javascript, Ruby, PHP, Python, all these languages are 30-50 years old. I don't see any of them fading away the coming 20 years from now (you might argue about Ruby since it's much smaller, but it has a very strong community keeping it moving). You could bet your career on any of these and I'm pretty sure you will be fine 20 years from now.

Re: Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

#144

Post by tonyedgecombe »

zarzavat wrote: post #136
fastball wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. What's wrong with C#? 2. What made JS uniquely nice? I wanted to leave these questions entirely open to answer, but I'll add my own opinion on (2) because I feel compelled: nothing, JS is quite possibly the worst language ever designed. Certainly the worst in widespread use.

Why is JS one of the worst languages ever designed? I've used many languages and JS is one of the better designed ones in my opinion.

>Why is JS one of the worst languages ever designed?

Implicit type conversions.

Function scoping.

Null and undefined, what is the difference?

Accessing an undefined variable doesn't throw an exception.

Assigning to an undefined variable without var puts it in the global scope.

No integer type.

I could go on and on. The only reason it has become successful is because it has a monopoly in the browser.

Re: Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

#145

Post by grncdr »

sanderjd wrote: post #110
Buttons840 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’ve tried python, but I end up having to deal with the mess of importing modules Without those imports, how will people reading the code find the definitions? How will they track down the source code for all the methods being called? If the answer is "with an IDE / tools", then can't those same tools be used to solve the "mess of importing modules"? If you're using a good IDE, imports and go-to-definition are both…

The often impossibility of finding the definition of the methods I'm calling is the main thing that soured me on Rails. I think a more explicit style is more common nowadays, which is a good thing.

Maybe you already know it, but I find `something.method(:mystery_method).source_location` points me to the right place more often than not. I only mention it because I have noticed a lot of people work productively in Ruby without leveraging it's dynamic/reflective features[0], but little idioms like the above are absolute lifesavers for me.

[0]: A big disadvantage of the above is it's not statically resolvable, so you couldn't really build an IDE go-to-definition with it.

Re: Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

#146

Post by tonyedgecombe »

stickfigure wrote: post #101
fastball wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's less funny and more an endorsement of how good tooling has gotten over the last few years. Intellisense et al. have changed the game so that you can actually be more productive from the start with statically typed languages because the inference (and UX/DX to utilize those inferences) is so much better than with dynamic/duck typing.

Last few years? Java IDEs have been doing this for decades (plural). C++ IDEs for another decade beyond that.

C++ IDEs lagged Java IDEs on this stuff.

Re: Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

#147

Post by zerocount »

abstract_put wrote: post #75
Mikeb85 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The downside is the ecosystem turning into the JS/TS ecosystem. Where the zealots have pushed TS to the point it all just looks like C# and what makes JS nice is being lost.

Do you have any specific examples of things that make JS nice that have been lost because of the popularity of TS? As with types in Ruby, I was under the impression nothing was really lost as TS could be added incrementally as developers saw value. I don't think I've talked to anyone who has gotten "over the hump" with TS and felt like they were missing something from JS - I may be in a bubble though. It's almost fru…

The dynamic nature of JavaScript is lost when using TypeScript.

Although TypeScript can be added incrementally, in practice I've only seen it totally replace JavaScript.

While I do believe more people prefer TypeScript over JavaScript, I think it's because those people never deep dived JavaScript or bothered to learn it enough to see how powerful it really is. There are also people that just prefer typed languages and will shun languages without static types.

This really is a religious war and boils down to one's opinion. I like JavaScript without typing.

Re: Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

#148

Post by jjdeveloper »

joelbluminator wrote: post #142
jb3689 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then there is Rails. Nothing even comes close Have you tried Phoenix? It's really close. It's better in some ways. The data layer is quite different however. As much as I like Ruby, Elixir made a lot of things I liked about Ruby better

Are you happy with the way things are going for Elixir? It seemed to me like the Elixir community was hoping for it to become the next Ruby and I don't see that happening anymore. It will have to settle for being a well respected but obscure piece of tech, kinda like what Erlang is.

I see Elixir pulling in a lot of people in with Liveview, especially those in the node/react world who are getting tired of the churn and build complexities.

Re: Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

#149

Post by shafyy »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #4

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 feel very similarly with Ruby and especially Rails. After working in Rails for multiple years, I'm now doing a freelance gig where the tech stack is React, NodeJS with TypeScript on Firebase Cloud Functions, and it almost sucks out all of the joy of programming.

Making software in Rails feels creative, and the act of writing code in itself is very satisfactory.

A good opportunity to re-read the Rails Doctrine: https://rubyonrails.org/doctrine

Now, I know that this is very subjective and I can see how others might prefer other languages or frameworks, so I'm not adding this here to start a discussion. Just to share my feelings :-)

Re: Where is Ruby Headed in 2021?

#150

Post by cpursley »

joelbluminator wrote: post #142
jb3689 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then there is Rails. Nothing even comes close Have you tried Phoenix? It's really close. It's better in some ways. The data layer is quite different however. As much as I like Ruby, Elixir made a lot of things I liked about Ruby better

Are you happy with the way things are going for Elixir? It seemed to me like the Elixir community was hoping for it to become the next Ruby and I don't see that happening anymore. It will have to settle for being a well respected but obscure piece of tech, kinda like what Erlang is.

Elixir and Phoneix are more popular than ever, especially with the release of LiveView. The ecosystem and community continues to absorb refugees from Ruby and other stacks.

It's such a better platform than Ruby and Rails that I won't bother writing about it here - there are already hundreds of blog posts about it. Productivity is at least on par with Ruby (I believe better) and performance on another plane of existence.

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