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Who's Charles angry at?

Joshua Ballanco

9/5/2008 2:12:00 PM

Well, I just came across this in my feed reader:
http://blog.headius.com/2008/09/ele...

Mymymy...such vitriol! Look, I've never had anything against JRuby. In
fact, I'm very interested (and less involved than I should be) in
MacRuby (which, I noticed, did _not_ get a mention in that rant). I also
feel like Rubinius is an interesting project. That said, I've always
worried that Ruby is heading down Smalltalk's slippery slope.

What heartened me a bit was that all of the various implementations
(excluding MagLev...whatever happened to those guys?) are FOSS, and
there is an active process attempting to standardize Ruby. You can find
the page over on PBWiki: http://ruby-design.p...

...or at least it was active? I know the late summer lends itself more
to vacations than days-long hack-fests. Still, it'd be nice to know that
there will be more coming down the pipe from the ruby-design process.
Ruby 1.9 looks good. I think I'd feel a lot better about JRuby if I knew
their group was on-board with the whole 1.8-->1.9-->2.0 process. I
realize there is a lot of practical vs principle going on here, still...

So really then, what is it going to take? I don't think Ruby will fade
to obscurity, but it would be nice to see it succeed at least as much as
Python seems to have. If that success involves JRuby, I'm perfectly o.k.
with that!
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-....
7 Answers

Charles Oliver Nutter

9/5/2008 9:47:00 PM

0

Joshua Ballanco wrote:
> Well, I just came across this in my feed reader:
> http://blog.headius.com/2008/09/ele...
>
> Mymymy...such vitriol! Look, I've never had anything against JRuby. In
> fact, I'm very interested (and less involved than I should be) in
> MacRuby (which, I noticed, did _not_ get a mention in that rant). I also
> feel like Rubinius is an interesting project. That said, I've always
> worried that Ruby is heading down Smalltalk's slippery slope.

I don't think there was any vitriol at all. I avoided that kind of rant
(useful as it may be, sometimes) to escape the visceral response that
always accompanies. What I really wanted was to be constructive while
slapping the stupids out of people who still dismiss JRuby because it
has a J in it. It's definitely not everyone, and maybe not a
majority...but in many cases it's people that garner a lot of respect
and people who should know better.

I'm also hoping this will start the discussion of what we on the JRuby
team can do better to support Rubyists. We're really trying to make
JRuby the best it can be for *you*.

> ...or at least it was active? I know the late summer lends itself more
> to vacations than days-long hack-fests. Still, it'd be nice to know that
> there will be more coming down the pipe from the ruby-design process.
> Ruby 1.9 looks good. I think I'd feel a lot better about JRuby if I knew
> their group was on-board with the whole 1.8-->1.9-->2.0 process. I
> realize there is a lot of practical vs principle going on here, still...

We are! JRuby already includes a few bits of 1.9, including Fibers
(backed by native threads, but functionally similar), native Rational
and Complex, and a few other odds and ends like proc {} = Proc.new {}.
You can turn on 1.9 mode with a simple command-line flag --1.9 and we
ship both in the same codebase. We're on board, but we're taking a more
relaxed approach since even 1.9 is still changing.

- Charlie

Bill Kelly

9/5/2008 11:42:00 PM

0


From: "Charles Oliver Nutter" <charles.nutter@sun.com>
>
> I'm also hoping this will start the discussion of what we on the JRuby
> team can do better to support Rubyists. We're really trying to make
> JRuby the best it can be for *you*.

Every time I see one of the JRuby team's posts on ruby-talk about a
new release, I read the changelog, and I'm frequently impressed by
the number of accomplishments listed there. My impression has been,
"These guys are kicking ass!"

Personally I don't see a downside of having *quality* ruby implementations
running on any/every conceivable platform. And from every indication,
you guys are doing quality work.

So.... rock on!


Regards,

Bill

Axel Etzold

9/5/2008 11:55:00 PM

0


-------- Original-Nachricht --------
> Datum: Sat, 6 Sep 2008 06:46:47 +0900
> Von: Charles Oliver Nutter <charles.nutter@sun.com>
> An: ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org
> Betreff: Re: Who\'s Charles angry at?

> Joshua Ballanco wrote:
> > Well, I just came across this in my feed reader:
> > http://blog.headius.com/2008/09/ele...
> >
> > Mymymy...such vitriol! Look, I've never had anything against JRuby. In
> > fact, I'm very interested (and less involved than I should be) in
> > MacRuby (which, I noticed, did _not_ get a mention in that rant). I also
> > feel like Rubinius is an interesting project. That said, I've always
> > worried that Ruby is heading down Smalltalk's slippery slope.
>
> I don't think there was any vitriol at all. I avoided that kind of rant
> (useful as it may be, sometimes) to escape the visceral response that
> always accompanies. What I really wanted was to be constructive while
> slapping the stupids out of people who still dismiss JRuby because it
> has a J in it. It's definitely not everyone, and maybe not a
> majority...but in many cases it's people that garner a lot of respect
> and people who should know better.
>
> I'm also hoping this will start the discussion of what we on the JRuby
> team can do better to support Rubyists. We're really trying to make
> JRuby the best it can be for *you*.
>

Dear Charles, dear Joshua,

Just some thoughts.
Imagine I was trying to sell some novel idea for some technical problem to another company, along
with a software implementation.
So the idea is more important than the software, but coders at that company would have to understand
the code and be able to maintain it.
The actual submission of the proposal goes by some in-between company that collects proposed ideas
and hides the identities of the proponent and receiver from each other, so I don't know what coding languages people
at the company use, yet I have to do some programming to be able to show something.
Ruby is the language I am most effective in.

Judging from the field sizes of Ruby and Java in this map,

http://radar.oreilly.com/Langua...

from here:

http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2008/03/state-of-the-computer-book-m...,

I'd say that if one wants to argue, it is still easier to blame someone for not knowing Java than for not knowing Ruby.

I feel attracted to JRuby, because it gives me the hope that I can produce code in Ruby and transform it into something
that will run on a Java system (using rawr), and if I nicely name the methods and the variables, Ruby code can be
well-readable and understandable even to somebody who hasn't used it before.

Now I am wondering whether there's a project in the Java world to try to make Ruby accessible from Java in a similar
way JRuby tries to make Java accessible from Ruby. I couldn't find anything quickly.
Such a project could resolve to some degree the fear and angst problem (at least practically), as it would make it easier for Rubyists and Javaists to use code from each other while otherwise using their own language and beloved syntactic sugar.

On the other hand, if no Java/Ruby integration project from the Java side exists, cooperation between Java and Ruby has to happen in the Ruby camp. This might gently bring Java coders to have a look at Ruby, and maybe use it further, so it's actually a project to promote Ruby as a language ... for those people who don't like Java, this should be good news, as it
promotes Ruby.

Best regards,

Axel

--
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James Britt

9/6/2008 1:11:00 AM

0

Bill Kelly wrote:
>
> From: "Charles Oliver Nutter" <charles.nutter@sun.com>
>>
>> I'm also hoping this will start the discussion of what we on the JRuby
>> team can do better to support Rubyists. We're really trying to make
>> JRuby the best it can be for *you*.
>
> Every time I see one of the JRuby team's posts on ruby-talk about a
> new release, I read the changelog, and I'm frequently impressed by
> the number of accomplishments listed there. My impression has been,
> "These guys are kicking ass!"

In fact, Charlie, Tom, et al, have broken several Kick-ass-O-meters.

They'll be a fund raiser soon to buy them one that is more
industrial-strength for extended ass-kickery.



--
James Britt

www.happycamperstudios.com - Wicked Cool Coding
www.jamesbritt.com - Playing with Better Toys
www.ruby-doc.org - Ruby Help & Documentation
www.rubystuff.com - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff

Joshua Ballanco

9/6/2008 1:29:00 AM

0

Charles Oliver Nutter wrote:
> I don't think there was any vitriol at all. I avoided that kind of rant
> (useful as it may be, sometimes) to escape the visceral response that
> always accompanies. What I really wanted was to be constructive while
> slapping the stupids out of people who still dismiss JRuby because it
> has a J in it. It's definitely not everyone, and maybe not a
> majority...but in many cases it's people that garner a lot of respect
> and people who should know better.

True. Vitriol was probably too strong. What caught me most was the form
your essay took as a direct retort. This is why I wondered if there was
a specific target you had in mind (person or otherwise).

> I'm also hoping this will start the discussion of what we on the JRuby
> team can do better to support Rubyists. We're really trying to make
> JRuby the best it can be for *you*.

Well, as I mentioned, the silence over at ruby-design is mildly
disheartening (though, to your credit you were one of the last ones to
comment). As someone mentioned in the comments on your blog, I think the
root source of the difference between how Jython and JRuby are regarded
is that there is no risk of Jython ever supplanting Python. If Jython
strays too far, it's simply not a Python implementation any longer. Ruby
really has no concrete way of saying "this is Ruby" or "this is not
Ruby".

> We are! JRuby already includes a few bits of 1.9, including Fibers
> (backed by native threads, but functionally similar), native Rational
> and Complex, and a few other odds and ends like proc {} = Proc.new {}.

So, this is where it gets kind of interesting. I think that running on
the JVM puts JRuby in a very interesting position. Ruby is such a
diverse and yet subtle language, to implement all of it's features is no
small task. The examples you give, especially Fibers, are places where
JRuby could lead the way in prototyping new features. The difficulty is,
how much of a pass on other features can we lend to JRuby? This, of
course, brings us back to the lack of a formal delineation of what _is_
Ruby.

> You can turn on 1.9 mode with a simple command-line flag --1.9 and we
> ship both in the same codebase. We're on board, but we're taking a more
> relaxed approach since even 1.9 is still changing.

The more I read of what you (and the JRuby team) have done, the more I
want to play with and explore JRuby. Alas, time is the one thing I don't
have. Thank you for your work, and hopefully we can all move Ruby
forward, together.

-Josh
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-....

Bill Kelly

9/6/2008 6:22:00 AM

0


From: "Joshua Ballanco" <jballanc@gmail.com>
>
> As someone mentioned in the comments on your blog, I think the
> root source of the difference between how Jython and JRuby are regarded
> is that there is no risk of Jython ever supplanting Python. If Jython
> strays too far, it's simply not a Python implementation any longer. Ruby
> really has no concrete way of saying "this is Ruby" or "this is not
> Ruby".

My feeling as a lurker on ruby-core, is that all implementations (and
implementors) so far honor matz as the final authority, benevolent
dictator, and lead designer of the ruby language.

Has anyone observed evidence to the contrary?


Regards,

Bill

David A. Black

9/6/2008 7:48:00 AM

0

Hi --

On Sat, 6 Sep 2008, Joshua Ballanco wrote:

> Charles Oliver Nutter wrote:
>> I don't think there was any vitriol at all. I avoided that kind of rant
>> (useful as it may be, sometimes) to escape the visceral response that
>> always accompanies. What I really wanted was to be constructive while
>> slapping the stupids out of people who still dismiss JRuby because it
>> has a J in it. It's definitely not everyone, and maybe not a
>> majority...but in many cases it's people that garner a lot of respect
>> and people who should know better.
>
> True. Vitriol was probably too strong. What caught me most was the form
> your essay took as a direct retort. This is why I wondered if there was
> a specific target you had in mind (person or otherwise).
>
>> I'm also hoping this will start the discussion of what we on the JRuby
>> team can do better to support Rubyists. We're really trying to make
>> JRuby the best it can be for *you*.
>
> Well, as I mentioned, the silence over at ruby-design is mildly
> disheartening (though, to your credit you were one of the last ones to
> comment). As someone mentioned in the comments on your blog, I think the
> root source of the difference between how Jython and JRuby are regarded
> is that there is no risk of Jython ever supplanting Python. If Jython
> strays too far, it's simply not a Python implementation any longer. Ruby
> really has no concrete way of saying "this is Ruby" or "this is not
> Ruby".

Matz gets to say. There's never been any ambiguity about that.


David

--
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