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Why we still build with Ruby

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Re: Why we still build with Ruby

#41

Post by Alifatisk »

FinnLobsien wrote: post #23
andrei_says_ wrote: post #11

A language intentionally designed for DX + a pragmatic, stable, well organized framework minimizing boilerplate and BS are still the winning formula for fast web app development. The productivity and joy I get from working with this stack are immeasurable. I’ve been ruined in terms of having zero tolerance for the agony that comes with the JS ecosystem for example.

I think it's the Toyota Camry of languages. No, it's not the cool thing and won't turn heads or get you compliments. But it'll take you very, very far for a very, very long time.

> [Ruby is] Toyota Camry of languages

This is such a good statement and describes it very well, I'll actually use it!

Re: Why we still build with Ruby

#42

Post by voidfunc »

stackskipton wrote: post #29
ksec wrote: post #20

I am hoping we have even more surprises in Rails World in two weeks time. And may be a glimpse of ZJIT? It is not just Ruby and Rails has gotten faster, CPU performance and core count has been getting cheaper. One thing I forgot to post last time in the GitHub CEO step down thread. I am hoping Microsoft won't force GitHub to move away from Ruby Rails. I remember there were some noise early on during the acquisition M…

Having been on Microsoft acquisition before, generally they encourage .Net usage for greenfield if possible but it’s pretty gentle encouragement. I’ve heard they are getting pretty pushy against C++.

Really depends on the org you're in and what ecosystems you need to work with. Almost everything we write is Go based at Microsoft in my org.

Re: Why we still build with Ruby

#43

Post by mrits »

doublerabbit wrote: post #8
rafark wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the same thing with php. I would say it’s probably because they are languages from the 90s, but then you have python and JavaScript which are from the same era too and people never question their relevance or “modernity”. All of these languages (even java) have been in constant development since then and all of them have modern features. Why are some considered modern and some outdated when they are all basicall…

PHP typically required a web-server, system administration which is old fashioned. No one wants to do that which is fine as it keeps me employed. When Ruby made western presence it was clunky. No one knew what it was and it got stuck with that personality. It had an ecosystem too but never hooked in to the western world. Java is tainted by Oracle and seen as "business". And it's also weird how Postgres has made an up…

By western world do you mean California? Because in Austin rails was huge and I was a lonely Django fan

Re: Why we still build with Ruby

#44

Post by phplovesong »

vindin wrote: post #2

I don’t understand why Ruby and Rails get a reputation for being outdated or “legacy.” Over the last several years both have seen massive numbers of contributions, both in improvements and new features. I’d be surprised if any tool for building a new web app could even come close to what Rails has to offer across the full stack.

I feel its the MVC part that IMHO kind of sucks. I really dont like how it couples you to all sorts of frameworky stuff. A simple router is what you really need in 99% of cases.

Re: Why we still build with Ruby

#45

Post by osigurdson »

I wonder how much can be attributed to liking vs disliking low level things. Some people like knowing which register their data is in (and sometimes it actually does matter) while others just don't want to get into those details.

I'd say, don't fight this bias - choose the tools that resonate with you.

Re: Why we still build with Ruby

#46

Post by Alifatisk »

dismalaf wrote: post #16

> - Rails handles our API, domain logic, and billing workflows. > - Go powers services that need high I/O concurrency or long-lived network connections. > - Rust handles CPU-bound jobs. It's always amazed me than the discourse around dynamic vs. static languages is that you can't have both. Like, dynamic languages are literally built on a foundation of static, compiled languages. Ruby's source is C and now some Rust.…

> So just build in Ruby and when you hit a bottleneck, rewrite that bottleneck in C or Rust

Nowadays, yjit is so good that there is no real reason to use c extensions

Re: Why we still build with Ruby

#47

Post by Alifatisk »

dismalaf wrote: post #19
drzaiusx11 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many times with JIT you don't even need to drop to a more performant language. You can actually get some speed gains by moving C library code back to Ruby so you don't have to pay the translation costs

True. Ruby JIT has increased performance for some tasks you'd drop down to C for back in the day... All the gains Ruby has made in the last few years are pretty incredible. I never picked it because of performance reasons but it's pretty nice that it's getting faster. Either way though, Ruby FFI is super super easy. Just for fun, because of this thread, I spent a whole 2 minutes (lol) linking an Odin (my new low-leve…

> I spent a whole 2 minutes (lol) linking an Odin (my new low-level hobby language) library to Ruby.

Would you mind creating a gist of your steps?

Re: Why we still build with Ruby

#48

Post by sunrunner »

doublerabbit wrote: post #8
rafark wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the same thing with php. I would say it’s probably because they are languages from the 90s, but then you have python and JavaScript which are from the same era too and people never question their relevance or “modernity”. All of these languages (even java) have been in constant development since then and all of them have modern features. Why are some considered modern and some outdated when they are all basicall…

PHP typically required a web-server, system administration which is old fashioned. No one wants to do that which is fine as it keeps me employed. When Ruby made western presence it was clunky. No one knew what it was and it got stuck with that personality. It had an ecosystem too but never hooked in to the western world. Java is tainted by Oracle and seen as "business". And it's also weird how Postgres has made an up…

> When Ruby made western presence it was clunky.

At least when I first encountered Ruby it felt somewhat cool and exotic, I think because of a combination of its friendly website (compared to say Java), Japanese origin, and the fact that some of the first Ruby I ever learned was from why's (poignant) Guide to Ruby.

Re: Why we still build with Ruby

#49

Post by sunrunner »

AlienRobot wrote: post #32
doublerabbit wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PHP typically required a web-server, system administration which is old fashioned. No one wants to do that which is fine as it keeps me employed. When Ruby made western presence it was clunky. No one knew what it was and it got stuck with that personality. It had an ecosystem too but never hooked in to the western world. Java is tainted by Oracle and seen as "business". And it's also weird how Postgres has made an up…

How is it possible that we have this many programming languages and every single one is worse than the other?

Perhaps because:

"There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses" -- Bjarne Stroustrup

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