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Ruby 2.0.0-rc2 is released

ruby-lang.org

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Re: Ruby 2.0.0-rc2 is released

#41

Post by ritchiea »

VeejayRampay wrote: post #16
eduardordm wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Languages like ruby and python democratize programming. Learning programming with C is like having a 25 years old mother of 2 as your first girlfriend.

OR it is having a mature and charming 35 year-old with lots of experience as your first girlfriend/boyfriend. The gap is huge at first but with the growing relationship you learn about all the intricate details of being with someone on a daily basis, which can make all subsequent relationships much easier to handle. C is rough, it's roots, but it doesn't distort the programmer in any way and teaches very sane princip…

I think one of the issues is how different languages are taught. My first experience with Java was in an awful CS AP class in high school that was an unrewarding grind and I eventually dropped it. My next experience was in an intro CS course at liberal arts school and the assignments were largely start with an empty screen of code and write some interesting computations from scratch.

What I suppose I didn't realize at the time is that those classes weren't designed to teach me to build things with code, which is what I really wanted to do. I don't even want to be overly critical of the college level course because the academic CS stuff really helped me frame some of my thinking about code in the type of real world applications I build now. We also touched on some Haskell, automata theory, circuits, turing machines and assembly in that class. Still it left me feeling like building programs people use was impossible.

When I first started writing a rails app in ruby it was an "aha!" moment about how people actually get things done. Most people learning ruby learn it in the context of trying to build something others will use.

Re: Ruby 2.0.0-rc2 is released

#42

Post by TallboyOne »

jrabone wrote: post #21
zopticity wrote: post #4

Why do we have a post about the release candidate? Is this to raise awareness for the release or something. It doesn't seem to make sense to post about all version. If we did this, Chrome browser would be nuts considering how many versions it goes through!

It's Ruby. Every little fucking thing is front page news, from drama to RC releases to security holes. Welcome to programming by celebrity, where what you write isn't half so important as what you write it in, and how many tweets it generates.

Quite bitter.

Re: Ruby 2.0.0-rc2 is released

#43

Post by eduardordm »

VeejayRampay wrote: post #16
eduardordm wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Languages like ruby and python democratize programming. Learning programming with C is like having a 25 years old mother of 2 as your first girlfriend.

OR it is having a mature and charming 35 year-old with lots of experience as your first girlfriend/boyfriend. The gap is huge at first but with the growing relationship you learn about all the intricate details of being with someone on a daily basis, which can make all subsequent relationships much easier to handle. C is rough, it's roots, but it doesn't distort the programmer in any way and teaches very sane princip…

I have to use C because the hardware I use at my company requires it for a number of reasons (performance is not one of them). C was my first language and it is responsible for a very substantial part of my income. But I find the establishment of C and intel arch the reason you still have to use a keyboard chip to enable 32/64 bit mode in a computer:

https://github.com/eduardordm/sisop/blob/master/sisop.asm (see line 110)

C can be low level, but it is mainly a high level language and it will 'distort' programmers just as any other language. Just because it doesn't have simple features it doesn't mean it is closer to the hardware.

C teaches you how to destroy memory, not manage. malloc+free are most harmful functions of the history of computers. (and I don't think I'm exaggerating) You can actually evaluate how awful a C programmer is by counting the number of mallocs/frees he uses.

Oh, I don't like C, by the way. (but I'm really grateful for knowing how to solve problems using this handicapped tool)

Re: Ruby 2.0.0-rc2 is released

#44

Post by wglb »

jabagonuts wrote: post #11
wglb wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious what were the worst pain points of C# for you?

I have to be careful about tendonitis flare ups in my wrist from my musician days. That makes languages like Java and C# literally more painful than languages like ruby that require less typing.

I do lots of typing, day and night, and have had near-crippling pain. I did two things that seriously helped.

First, I mapped keys at the OS level that reduced awkward movements, the most obvious of which is changing the caps lock to control.

The other major thing is acquiring a kinesis keyboard. After several weeks of using it, the pain gradually subsided, and now I have none.

The other thing i did in conjunction with this keyboard was to remap some of the keys unusually, like putting the escape key close to where my thumb could hit it.

There should be enough keyboard choices and key control to make the choice of language on criteria other than wrist or finger pain.

Re: Ruby 2.0.0-rc2 is released

#45

Post by richardjordan »

mitchty wrote: post #39
taligent wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To continue the analogy. She will also not work half the time and be messy beyond belief.

As a guy, i'm finding these analogies to be... poorly chosen and highly offensive to the extreme. Do we really need to analogize programming languages this way? You may not like Ruby or Python as first languages but I first learnt qbasic. Do I miss it, somedays yeah, but learning one is just like learning real languages. We can learn more than one. They aren't mutually exclusive. That and can we move beyond high scho…

Yeah sorta got ugly in a hurry there

Re: Ruby 2.0.0-rc2 is released

#46

Post by richardjordan »

ritchiea wrote: post #41
VeejayRampay wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OR it is having a mature and charming 35 year-old with lots of experience as your first girlfriend/boyfriend. The gap is huge at first but with the growing relationship you learn about all the intricate details of being with someone on a daily basis, which can make all subsequent relationships much easier to handle. C is rough, it's roots, but it doesn't distort the programmer in any way and teaches very sane princip…

I think one of the issues is how different languages are taught. My first experience with Java was in an awful CS AP class in high school that was an unrewarding grind and I eventually dropped it. My next experience was in an intro CS course at liberal arts school and the assignments were largely start with an empty screen of code and write some interesting computations from scratch. What I suppose I didn't realize a…

If I fat thumbed a down vote on my iPhone i apologize as I was trying to upvote you as I think you expressed this very well. I could get going with Ruby quickly and achieve a result fast which made me happy and want to do more.

Re: Ruby 2.0.0-rc2 is released

#47

Post by tedunangst »

eduardordm wrote: post #43
VeejayRampay wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OR it is having a mature and charming 35 year-old with lots of experience as your first girlfriend/boyfriend. The gap is huge at first but with the growing relationship you learn about all the intricate details of being with someone on a daily basis, which can make all subsequent relationships much easier to handle. C is rough, it's roots, but it doesn't distort the programmer in any way and teaches very sane princip…

I have to use C because the hardware I use at my company requires it for a number of reasons (performance is not one of them). C was my first language and it is responsible for a very substantial part of my income. But I find the establishment of C and intel arch the reason you still have to use a keyboard chip to enable 32/64 bit mode in a computer: https://github.com/eduardordm/sisop/blob/master/sisop.asm (see line…

The A20 gate is more like switching from 20 bit mode to 32 bit mode. It predates 64 bits by a long time.

Re: Ruby 2.0.0-rc2 is released

#48

Post by eduardordm »

tedunangst wrote: post #47
eduardordm wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to use C because the hardware I use at my company requires it for a number of reasons (performance is not one of them). C was my first language and it is responsible for a very substantial part of my income. But I find the establishment of C and intel arch the reason you still have to use a keyboard chip to enable 32/64 bit mode in a computer: https://github.com/eduardordm/sisop/blob/master/sisop.asm (see line…

The A20 gate is more like switching from 20 bit mode to 32 bit mode. It predates 64 bits by a long time.

Kind of my point, you still need to enable it, even though it doesn't actually exists.

Re: Ruby 2.0.0-rc2 is released

#49

Post by technomancy »

richardjordan wrote: post #10
eduardordm wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Languages like ruby and python democratize programming. Learning programming with C is like having a 25 years old mother of 2 as your first girlfriend.

Ha! So true. I am currently teaching my 8yo programming, or rather in the process of building a set of teaching tools for her - right now things are very early stage, and she's busy playing VIM Adventures to familiarize herself to the keyboard and keystrokes. I'm trying to decide between Ruby and Python, which has the highly recommended Snake Wrangling For Kids going for it.

Scratch is another option, much simpler than a ruby-based tool (it's fully visual) but dramatically more accessible. My 5 year old can't get enough of it; tonight we covered the Cartesian plane. Kids will probably outgrow it after a couple years since it has no means of abstraction, but it's superb at grabbing their attention.

Re: Ruby 2.0.0-rc2 is released

#50

Post by trustfundbaby »

Don't wait to try this out, I've been using this in production and it really flies ... I'm getting results in simple tests right around 60-70% which is right in line with this guy https://gist.github.com/soffes/4478454.

Can't really measure performance boost in production though, since I can't afford to get newrelic just yet

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