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Ruby 2.0.0 Released

ruby-lang.org

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Re: Ruby 2.0.0 Released

#81

Post by tykko »

tferris wrote: post #10

Today, I'll lose at least 50 karma points, but it's worth: Why people still use Ruby? 1. Because they get dream day rates for maintaining rusty slow legacy systems 2. Because they do not want to learn new languages and can stay in their comfort zone 3. Because they think it's still 2005 and nobody cares about slow server response times And now Ruby lovers, click on downvote or give your reasons why you still use Ruby…

Ruby lovers are all about "feelings" and "style", they don't care if their language of choice is objectively worse than, say, Python or Lua.

Ruby truly is the Apple of the programming world.

Re: Ruby 2.0.0 Released

#82

Post by tomstuart »

nnq wrote: post #78
jacquesc wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree about refinements. Hopefully the community pushes back enough on that experiment so it gets deprecated and removed. A better design approach to achieve this effect is wrapper objects (similar to jQuery and Underscore.js) where I can add functionality to existing objects. Ruby has everything we need for this already, and makes it quite easy to do.

Aren't refinements a "fixer feature", i.e. something 99% of developers should just ignore it until they really get into a problem with badly done monkeypatching, then use it to solve the problem and just move on? Why do people get so excited about them, both in a good and in a bad way? Just use them inside your library code and make sure people using your lib/framework can just pretend they don't exist, keep monkeypa…

Charles Nutter does a good job of explaining why you can't just ignore refinements: http://blog.headius.com/2012/11/refining-ruby.html

In summary, they makes the Ruby language harder to implement, and Ruby code harder to understand. You can't pretend they don't exist if their existence compromises the meaning of your code and the performance of your chosen Ruby implementation.

Re: Ruby 2.0.0 Released

#83

Post by noelwelsh »

I do wonder about the long term success of Ruby. Rails is easily the most visible project for Ruby. Rails is big, and all that code represents a high barrier to entry for any framework in a different language that wants to compete. However, a lot of people I talk to are moving to pure JS front-end + REST backend. In this world Rails doesn't deliver any particular value (in my opinion).

Ruby also has utility for doing lots of scripting type tasks (things like Jekyll). The libraries you need to do this are simple to write. Python is perfectly adequate for this task already, as is Node (modulo callback spaghetti). So there is no barrier to entry here.

In summary I don't see any project going forward that provides enough value to maintain interest in Ruby. Thoughts?

[NB: I'm not saying Ruby is going to die overnight. I just think it will slowly become less relevant.]

Re: Ruby 2.0.0 Released

#84

Post by rb2k_ »

noelwelsh wrote: post #83

I do wonder about the long term success of Ruby. Rails is easily the most visible project for Ruby. Rails is big, and all that code represents a high barrier to entry for any framework in a different language that wants to compete. However, a lot of people I talk to are moving to pure JS front-end + REST backend. In this world Rails doesn't deliver any particular value (in my opinion). Ruby also has utility for doing…

> Thoughts?

I think most of the things you say sound like you haven't worked with either.

Few people are moving to pure JS front-end. Some are, some write blogposts about it, but the majority of people isn't. Some are even moving back, a year or so ago there were a lot of blogposts about that kind of stuff.

Rails offers a lot of interesting things in the M and C parts of the MVC pattern (Object persistence, REST endpoints, ...). People even write books about the topic ( https://learn.thoughtbot.com/products/1-backbone-js-on-rails )

Ruby and Python are pretty similar and as with Java and C++, there is space for both. I personally like Ruby more, but I guess that's just a matter of style.

Re: Ruby 2.0.0 Released

#85

Post by smnrchrds »

noelwelsh wrote: post #83

I do wonder about the long term success of Ruby. Rails is easily the most visible project for Ruby. Rails is big, and all that code represents a high barrier to entry for any framework in a different language that wants to compete. However, a lot of people I talk to are moving to pure JS front-end + REST backend. In this world Rails doesn't deliver any particular value (in my opinion). Ruby also has utility for doing…

> I just think it will slowly become less relevant.

That's true for virtually anything. Do you think C/C++ or Java or JS will be mainstream 30 years from now. They will be in the same situation FORTRAN is today: important because of lots of legacy code, but not a viable choice when starting a new project.

Of course some of them will never die. LISP comes to my mind. :-)

Re: Ruby 2.0.0 Released

#86

Post by Gigablah »

robryan wrote: post #44
rimantas wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People still write PHP and it is even slower. And who writes web services in pure Ruby? The response speed depends very little on the language used.

Is that actually true that PHP is slower? Say something like Symphony2 vs rails for a reasonably complicated app. Is there much out there in terms of benchmarks? (I think we are both coming from that it really doesn't matter most of the time side but would be interesting to know if PHP is actually slower).

I don't know about Rails, but as a Symfony2 user, it's actually a bit on the slower side compared to other PHP frameworks.

But ~300ms server response times is nothing if your end user has to wait 5-6 seconds for the page to render due to suboptimal frontend code. Plus, throw in varnish/nginx microcaching and requests drop to ~10ms regardless of your framework.

Re: Ruby 2.0.0 Released

#87

Post by i386 »

mosselman wrote: post #56
tferris wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Probably 75% of new startups are using rails, and rightly so. You'd need a good reason not to use it. "Rusty slow legacy systems" - what nonsense. 75%? Evidence? You are the one who is talking nonsense, sorry to be direct and getting on Reddit level but you started. > 2. If there was a better language, they'd probably learn it? Or are you trying to insinuate Ruby programmers are dumb/lazy? Do I really have to te…

Firstly (Disclaimer) I am a Rails developer, I choose to be one right now, until (if) I find that my efforts are better spent elsewhere. I agree with tferris to some extent. Those arguments are nonsensical to say the least. This might be a feeling, I am not one to shout random feeling-based percentages, but I feel that people, in general, not just HN, don't realise that you can just claim things in this way. 75%? Whe…

Well you should use a framework not because you are lazy but because there are a million other actually important things you should be doing than implementing state for HTTP for the billionth time.

Re: Ruby 2.0.0 Released

#88

Post by _ZeD_ »

tomstuart wrote: post #61
yakiv wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Ruby some, but I'm not sure I'd describe it as clean exactly. I've used Python a bit recently and was struck by just how clean it seemed. (I'm not sure Python has anything that quite replaces blocks, though. I don't claim Python's all better than Ruby.)

Cleanliness is subjective, but: * Everything is an object, without exception. * The object model is pleasingly orthogonal and its behaviour is easy to understand and predict once you know how it works. * The syntax is high on alphanumerics and low on punctuation. * Most of the core library method names strike a good balance between brevity and clarity. * `Enumerable` is simple and powerful.

I am a pythonista by hobby... and I've seen many times in these too many ruby / python comparison, that only in ruby "Everything is an object, without exception."

but... I cannot find a "thing" that isn't an object, in python neither... care to tell me, or point to a link regarding to, what is the difference in this context between the two languages? Just an example or something like that. Thanks.

Re: Ruby 2.0.0 Released

#89

Post by noelwelsh »

rb2k_ wrote: post #84
noelwelsh wrote: post #83

I do wonder about the long term success of Ruby. Rails is easily the most visible project for Ruby. Rails is big, and all that code represents a high barrier to entry for any framework in a different language that wants to compete. However, a lot of people I talk to are moving to pure JS front-end + REST backend. In this world Rails doesn't deliver any particular value (in my opinion). Ruby also has utility for doing…

> Thoughts? I think most of the things you say sound like you haven't worked with either. Few people are moving to pure JS front-end. Some are, some write blogposts about it, but the majority of people isn't. Some are even moving back, a year or so ago there were a lot of blogposts about that kind of stuff. Rails offers a lot of interesting things in the M and C parts of the MVC pattern (Object persistence, REST endp…

FWIW, I only used examples with which I have personal experience. All new front-end projects we're doing are pure JS. I've used Jekyll in various commercial and non-commercial applications.

Re: Ruby 2.0.0 Released

#90

Post by noelwelsh »

smnrchrds wrote: post #85
noelwelsh wrote: post #83

I do wonder about the long term success of Ruby. Rails is easily the most visible project for Ruby. Rails is big, and all that code represents a high barrier to entry for any framework in a different language that wants to compete. However, a lot of people I talk to are moving to pure JS front-end + REST backend. In this world Rails doesn't deliver any particular value (in my opinion). Ruby also has utility for doing…

> I just think it will slowly become less relevant. That's true for virtually anything. Do you think C/C++ or Java or JS will be mainstream 30 years from now. They will be in the same situation FORTRAN is today: important because of lots of legacy code, but not a viable choice when starting a new project. Of course some of them will never die. LISP comes to my mind. :-)

Sure. It's the time scale that's important. Irrelevant in 30 years has vastly different implications to irrelevant in 5.
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