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Ruby 2.5.0 Released

ruby-lang.org

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Re: Ruby 2.5.0 Released

#61

Post by tres »

pka wrote: post #46
skywhopper wrote: post #11

When I discovered Ruby 12 years ago, it was an amazing moment. All the features I loved from my previous favorite languages Perl, Smalltalk, and Scheme in one place, but with a much more reasonable syntax, a far more robust standard library, a complete and dead-simple packaging system, and a practical and portable runtime. The fact that it still feels magical, fun, practical, and pragmatic all at the same time while…

I started a new contracting gig a couple of months ago, in Ruby. I had used it briefly years before in another project, but it was so long ago that I had to learn it again basically from scratch. Although I don't really think the language is anything special (i.e. it's a standard dynamic OO language), what really turns me off Ruby is this dogmatic, almost religious aspect of its community. Take POODR - it's more or l…

Huh... didn't even know what POODR was...

Guess I've been faking it for the past nine years... I mean, I did start a company that used Ruby/Rails as the primary platform. And I've worked the last six years in a shop that currently has a team of about 12 Ruby/Rails developers...

Don't get me wrong, Ruby's a tool in my toolbox; I use it like I would any other tool. I like solving problems. Most modern languages make it easy and fun to solve problems.

I don't like when it's easy to see where a language is encumbered by poor choices (I seem to have a diametrically opposed viewpoint of your opinion of the Javascript community; to me, the redundancy, low quality and churn of community libraries is one of Javascript's greater liabilities). But if it works for you, that's great.

Language Holy Wars are necessary for young, budding languages and young, budding programmers. Language Holy Wars help young communities draw others to their banner and young programmers define themselves. Unfortunately, having causes and "bad guys" is a big part of the underlying way we work as people.

But at some point, once a language's adoption has reached critical mass & once you've reached a point where you're comfortable with the underlying paradigms of programming, these Language Holy Wars get left behind for more interesting problems.

I mean, I definitely have opinions about what language I'd prefer to be working in and why, but at this point, I make my determination of technology based on the right tool for the job, not necessarily my opinion of any given language.

Re: Ruby 2.5.0 Released

#63

Post by scruple »

pka wrote: post #46
skywhopper wrote: post #11

When I discovered Ruby 12 years ago, it was an amazing moment. All the features I loved from my previous favorite languages Perl, Smalltalk, and Scheme in one place, but with a much more reasonable syntax, a far more robust standard library, a complete and dead-simple packaging system, and a practical and portable runtime. The fact that it still feels magical, fun, practical, and pragmatic all at the same time while…

I started a new contracting gig a couple of months ago, in Ruby. I had used it briefly years before in another project, but it was so long ago that I had to learn it again basically from scratch. Although I don't really think the language is anything special (i.e. it's a standard dynamic OO language), what really turns me off Ruby is this dogmatic, almost religious aspect of its community. Take POODR - it's more or l…

> Take POODR - it's more or less the community bible. If it's not written in POODR - don't do it. If it is - do it that way or else. It's POODR's way or the highway.

Sandi Metz would tell anyone espousing that the text written in POODR is to be taken at face value as gospel that they're completely wrong and completely missing the point. I've actually personally seen her correct this behavior at a conference and at a workshop and I've heard her say it many times in many places and mediums (podcasts, blogs, interviews).

Anyone who says "it's POODR or the highway" should be corrected, because they are very dangerous to any software engineering endeavor.

Re: Ruby 2.5.0 Released

#64

Post by woodruffw »

eropple wrote: post #60
woodruffw wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been writing Ruby for 4 years, and I had never heard of POODR before. I've also never come across any particular dogma in the Ruby community -- there are established best practices for formatting code, but individual projects vary widely style and design decisions. Most Ruby codebases I've worked on come with a custom `.rubocop.yml`, and that's it.

On that note, I'll just plug that http://relaxed.ruby.style is a great starting point for most folks' less...idiosyncratic...Rubocop rules than come with the default.

This is great, thanks!

Re: Ruby 2.5.0 Released

#65

Post by wasd »

pka wrote: post #46
skywhopper wrote: post #11

When I discovered Ruby 12 years ago, it was an amazing moment. All the features I loved from my previous favorite languages Perl, Smalltalk, and Scheme in one place, but with a much more reasonable syntax, a far more robust standard library, a complete and dead-simple packaging system, and a practical and portable runtime. The fact that it still feels magical, fun, practical, and pragmatic all at the same time while…

I started a new contracting gig a couple of months ago, in Ruby. I had used it briefly years before in another project, but it was so long ago that I had to learn it again basically from scratch. Although I don't really think the language is anything special (i.e. it's a standard dynamic OO language), what really turns me off Ruby is this dogmatic, almost religious aspect of its community. Take POODR - it's more or l…

hey pka,

some comments here mention that they've been doing ruby for years and never even heard of poodr. i think that's less of a point.

it sounds more like you feel stifled at your current job. there's no right answer when it comes to a software stack and it doesn't sound like your coworkers are excited about the same things you are. it doesn't have to be that way! i hope you find a new consulting (or full time gig) that stimulates you intellectually. merry christmas and happy new year.

Re: Ruby 2.5.0 Released

#66

Post by rajangdavis »

chrisseaton wrote: post #36
abritinthebay wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, expressive I totally get. Absolutely. But elegance? Don’t understand that one. Ruby is a cluster of inelegant and over concise cludges in the name of expressivity. The fact that it was once most famous for one of the most inelegant hacks - monkey patching - as a core feature speaks to that. So I totally understand that it’s quick, it’s expressive, and it’s easy to prototype in. Agreed. It’s lost a lot of it’s sh…

I don’t think you can call monkey patching inelegant or a hack. Monkey patching is the absence of extra rules - not allowing a method to be defined more than once - and the prescence of consistency - all methods can be redefined. It’s certainly problematic when used! But the feature itself is elegant and the opposite of a hack. Disallowing monkey patching requires extra conditions and rules, not less.

Not to sidetrack the conversation, but will you be announcing anything regarding the GraalVM? It seems like there is something announced every year, would love to hear the progress from last year

Re: Ruby 2.5.0 Released

#67

Post by 0x445442 »

WJW wrote: post #7

I started using Ruby only in April this year due to starting at a new job. Having used and/or dabbled in C, Java, Python and Haskell before (amongst others), I find it super interesting to see how Ruby manages to take some interesting parts from each and manages to integrate it into a very pleasant programming experience. Also the rspec testing library is nothing short of magic, none of the compiled languages have an…

Not too familiar with Rspec but I know Groovy (a compiled language) has testing frameworks like Spock that I believe are based on Rspec.

Re: Ruby 2.5.0 Released

#68

Post by chrisseaton »

rajangdavis wrote: post #66
chrisseaton wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think you can call monkey patching inelegant or a hack. Monkey patching is the absence of extra rules - not allowing a method to be defined more than once - and the prescence of consistency - all methods can be redefined. It’s certainly problematic when used! But the feature itself is elegant and the opposite of a hack. Disallowing monkey patching requires extra conditions and rules, not less.

Not to sidetrack the conversation, but will you be announcing anything regarding the GraalVM? It seems like there is something announced every year, would love to hear the progress from last year

Yeah I’ll try to post something to http://mail.openjdk.java.net/mailman/listinfo/graal-dev

Re: Ruby 2.5.0 Released

#69

Post by stouset »

masklinn wrote: post #38
stouset wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

def backoff(wait = 5, exponent: 1.5) yield rescue BackoffError sleep(wait) wait = wait ** exponent retry end backoff { connect_to_a_thing } This is trivially composable with any other control flow you might want to write in Ruby. Personally I find the Python approach inelegant. Can it be composed? Why am I having to work with low-level looping constructs instead of higher level control flow constructs that map more c…

Nothing precludes a similar approach in Python: def backoff(wait=5, exponent=1.5): while True: yield sleep(wait) wait = wait ** exponent for backoff(): connect_to_a_thing() Here's the question: do you need exponential backoff in more than one place? Because if you don't, bundling all of that doesn't buy you anything and the original works just fine. > This is trivially composable with any other control flow you might…

Your solution is much cleaner to me, except (not really knowing Python) it looks like it might have a bug, in that the `while True` will never terminate.
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