Zed Shaw - Ruby has dodged a bullet

Ruby
21

On Jan 1, 2008 8:35 PM, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky [email protected]
wrote:

if we had somehow “met and decided that he should be expelled.” So yes,
if we have indeed “lost” Zed S., I think we can afford it. There are
lots of brilliant people who are easy to work with, although anyone can
be pushed to the limit.
I honor your POV and will never argue that mine is more correct,
especially as you express it with great respect, allow me however to
be clearer than I was - my fault. I was not thinking about us but
society in general, your reasoning might still be valid though of
course.

Cheers
Robert

all) other professionals, and
b. There are enough good programmers that one in general does not need
to tolerate unacceptable behavior. That was not always the case.
One should never tolerate inacceptable behavior but are there not
other ways to deal with it than 0/1?
Well my hypothesis and more so John´s was that “intolerable” behaviour
is sometimes caused by problems we might face all once in a while and
therfore nobody should throw the first stone, if you feel however that
it is regular behaviour you are of course 100% right.
But you said it yourself, this is not the place to judge people, voila
why I took the role of the Advocatus Diaboli.

Cheers
Robert

http://ruby-smalltalk.blogspot.com/

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second,
it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Schopenhauer (attr.)

22

But you said it yourself, this is not the place to judge people, voila
ERRATUM: That was James, oh my bad
R.

23

Martin DeMello wrote:

Dunno about Zed, but I made the same decision recently. My reasoning
was (i) nascent languages and language communities are fun (ii) the
stdlib and emphasis on real world coding look really attractive. It
looks like it might become the open source equivalent of rebol, which
looked nice but which ran into my reluctance to invest in a
closed-source language.

martin

Hmmm …

  1. Rebol is slow. It was pretty much the slowest thing in the Alioth
    shootout the last time I ran the analysis.

2.The problem I have with Factor is that it’s so close to Forth that I
don’t see any advantage in learning it, since I already know (and love)
ANS Forth.

24

On Jan 1, 2008 5:00 PM, Jay L. [email protected] wrote:

On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 23:09:39 -0500, James B. wrote:

I liked the Ruby community better when it placed more emphasis on code
and less on personalities.

Ruby was around before USENET??

This is the first part of this thread that’s brought a smile to my face.
Thanks
Jay.

25

On Jan 1, 2008, at 5:00 PM, Jay L. wrote:

Ruby was around before USENET??

almost killed this thread - glad i didn’t now. touche.

a @ http://codeforpeople.com/

26

On 1 ene, 08:23, Marc H. [email protected] wrote:

giving any concrete evidence what he dislikes about ruby as language.
“don’t want to be a ‘ruby guy’” doesn’t mean he hates the language. he
just hate being labeled like that.

In my case I don’t hate but really piss me off that every time I try
to get feedback on proper support for Windows (which I professionally
use), get silly answers like “hey, move to a real OS”.

I don’t insult your OS choice, whatever distro of Linux you’re using,
nor even critize users using OSX and telling us that’s the OS every
developer should be using. Come on guys, di-ver-si-ty.

Also, underneath that “angry filled post” there is some logic. If
you’re a freelance developer, you should have feld that sometime, the
anxiety of job to put food on your table (and pay the bills), but
there is a also the need of recognition from your employers and your
peers, and not being used just for your name.

Have a nice year!

27

On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 23:09:39 -0500, James B. wrote:

I liked the Ruby community better when it placed more emphasis on code
and less on personalities.

Ruby was around before USENET??

28

this reminds me of the really hot girl rant who complains that despite
her hot body she always go for the wrong guy who only want to get in
her pant but I might need some sleep though :slight_smile:

-Pat

PS: Zed we love you and thanks again for Mongrel

29

On Jan 1, 7:46 pm, Luis L. [email protected] wrote:

In my case I don’t hate but really piss me off that every time I try
to get feedback on proper support for Windows (which I professionally
use), get silly answers like “hey, move to a real OS”.

Off Topic: I really do think OCI’s use of VC6 is a big factor in this.
Not only do I have to buy VMWare, a copy of Windows, and go through
hours of inconvenience, but I have to dig up some compiler that’s no
longer offered or supported when MS offers free alternatives for
download (VCExpress)… It’s really frustrating. Not directed at you
of course Luis. Appreciate your hard work at bridging the gap. :slight_smile:

30

Sam S. wrote:

of course Luis. Appreciate your hard work at bridging the gap. :slight_smile:
Well … let’s open this for discussion. Austin, John, Charlie, please
feel free to jump in. :slight_smile:

  1. Microsoft has a Ruby product in the works, which is called IronRuby.
    It is as I understand it an open source project, under development by a
    small team including John L… I haven’t heard the latest status, but as
    of RubyConf 2007 it was still “under construction”.

  2. jRuby will run anywhere the Java Virtual Machine runs, which means
    Windows is included.

  3. You do not have to buy VMware to run Windows on a Linux box
    provided your hardware has the recent enhancements that allow Xen to run
    unmodified guests. Xen is a bear to set up from raw source, but as I
    understand it, it is fairly painless under RHEL 5/CentOS 5 and some
    recent versions of Fedora. You do have to read the documentation, but
    there is documentation. :slight_smile: I can’t offer you any advice for
    Macintoshes … I’ve never owned one and odds are I never will.

  4. While there are “free as in beer” Microsoft compilers, the “free as
    in freedom” compilers for Windows are dominated by the gcc port to
    either MinGW or Cygwin. I haven’t checked recently to see if one is
    newer than the other, but both are true open source environments.

So there are lots of options for people who want to run Ruby on a
Windows box, ranging from the One-Click-Installer and Instant Rails to
loading Cygwin and using the Cygwin pre-compiled Ruby. Or you can build
your own from source on either Cygwin or MinGW.

The Cygwin Ruby is slightly faster on my workstation at my day job than
the One-Click Ruby, but not enough to justify a switch. But a Ruby
recompiled with gcc from source for, say, a P4, probably would be
significantly faster – maybe as much as 30 percent. I for one think
that’s enough motivation to switch from the One-Click, but there is also
the “religious” issue of whether you want to use a fully open source
tool chain or not.

31

On 2 ene, 01:48, Sam S. [email protected] wrote:

On Jan 1, 7:46 pm, Luis L. [email protected] wrote:

In my case I don’t hate but really piss me off that every time I try
to get feedback on proper support for Windows (which I professionally
use), get silly answers like “hey, move to a real OS”.

Keeping the OT :wink:

Off Topic: I really do think OCI’s use of VC6 is a big factor in this.
Not only do I have to buy VMWare, a copy of Windows, and go through
hours of inconvenience, but I have to dig up some compiler that’s no
longer offered or supported when MS offers free alternatives for
download (VCExpress)… It’s really frustrating.

The choice of VC6 wasn’t mine, nor original from Curt H. or Andy
Hunt for what matters.

I always bring this up, since there is some confusion on the
fundaments of Ruby being compiled with VC6:

  • Curt was using VC2003 (7.1) back in 2006, the pain to maintain not
    just Ruby but all the extensions compiled for it was overkill

  • There has been always an “official”, naked/barebone build of Ruby
    for Windows made by Nobu at garbagecollect. Curt and the others at One-
    Click Installer just fill the gap which was simpler at that time.

  • Discussion about VC2005, MinGW or whatever compile you name always
    raise in this list or ruby-core, but noone really take big steps on
    this, besides some contributions from Austin Z. to allow ruby be
    built with VC8, which is radically different beast compared to VC6.

  • VC8 bring just a big nightware to the whole thing, even is
    “free” (as microsoft states it), you require build everything with it,
    which translate to a hell of project maintainance.

  • Build with MinGW also requires proper testing, which I’ve tried to
    get some assistance on this list and also on ruby-core about serious
    issues (blockers) without success too (hey, maybe I need to learn
    english, since I think noone understand what I write).

Not directed at you of course Luis. Appreciate your hard work at bridging the gap. :slight_smile:

I know you don’t. I even had my differences with other developers on
this list, ruby-core or #ruby-lang, and sent my apologizes when
needed.

You must thank Zed, Curt, Nobu and Austing, without them and their
comments I wouldn’t be so active, lack of feedback is negative, more
when you’re working in your free time.

I must accept the fact I’m not a easy person to deal with, and that
many “companies” will not like my attitude for a “team work”.

On a On-Topic thing, if you remove the cursing and bad words from
Zed’s lengthy post, you will find a deep, not-so-far-from-truth
reality. Now replace ‘Rails’ with J2EE, dotNet or even SAP, and you
will find that this new virus is infecting the community is nothing
new, is a old decease that existed way before Ruby became “mainstream”
due Rails. I can call it a ‘suck-energy-from-community’ decease.

Anyway, I cannot comment on the personal relations or the
personalities Zed mention in his post, since I haven’t dealt with them
and cannot discuss these personal issues in such open way like Zed
did. But again, that is Zed’s POV and his ideas, agree or not with
them.

For what matters, Zed was the only developer back in 2006 (or even
2007) I’ve met that from day zero shown openness and desire to get
Mongrel working on Windows. Hey, he even setup a Windows box and
installed FreeBASIC just to build mongrel_service there!

Some folks may consider my comments useless since I can be Zed’s
friend. I hope he consider me that way, since I respect him as human
being and his work. All this time we’ve chat, mailed or IM we talk and
share ideas with respect.

Hope other users don’t follow the main line of this thread and start
doing the first thing they critize from Zed.

Everybody have a nice week!

Regards,

Luis L.

32

Luis L. wrote:

  • Build with MinGW also requires proper testing, which I’ve tried to
    get some assistance on this list and also on ruby-core about serious
    issues (blockers) without success too (hey, maybe I need to learn
    english, since I think noone understand what I write).

I can’t help you with ruby-core, but I can test MinGW (and Cygwin,
which I prefer) versions of Ruby. :slight_smile: I think the real issue isn’t
performance or open versus closed source, though. The real issue is that
a large number of Windows “workstations” are inside very tightly
controlled IT environments, and anything other than approved software
is frowned upon. That includes One-Click, MinGW, Cygwin, and lots of
other things.

Now if you’re talking about servers, I’d be inclined to join in the
chorus of “get a real OS”. :wink: Seriously, though, Windows servers using
all of the native Microsoft tools have an unjustified bad reputation.
They’re fine tools, the performance is competitive with the LAMP stack
(now), and the .NET development environment is world-class. But why pay
the Windows license fees for the base server OS if you’re going to run
Apache, MySQL or PostgreSQL, and Ruby/Rails or PHP? Why not just get
Debian, Fedora, CentOS (free), or even RHEL, which is cheaper than
Windows Server?

33

On Jan 1, 2008 1:35 PM, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky [email protected]
wrote:

  1. Well … there are a lot of Ruby and Rails books on the market. But
    there are a lot more books on how to deal with “difficult” people.
    Francis’ point is valid. Behavior like Zed’s is unacceptable. It is
    grounds for immediate dismissal in every organization I’ve ever been a
    part of, and always will be. Behavior of that kind drives productive
    people away.

True, but I think we need the occasional fringe behavior in any
community.

  1. Can we afford to lose such a brilliant mind? First of all, since this
    is a “community” and not an “organization”, I don’t think there’s a
    notion of “loss” here. That is, we couldn’t really have kicked him out
    if we had somehow “met and decided that he should be expelled.” So yes,
    if we have indeed “lost” Zed S., I think we can afford it. There are
    lots of brilliant people who are easy to work with, although anyone can
    be pushed to the limit.

From a business perspective, I agree.

b. There are enough good programmers that one in general does not need
to tolerate unacceptable behavior. That was not always the case.

I can understand the fascination of watching an otherwise-intelligent person
commit career-suicide by way of an embarrassing and tasteless rant. But the
Ruby community will survive being kissed off by Zed S…

I know of a lot of very smart people that would hire the person for
precisely his use of foul language and bad attitude.

The only thing I don’t like about that blog, though, is the focus on
people who use Rails and how evil/idiotic they must be. But, I just
think that sociologically, a scaffold (Rails) that allows people to do
things when they really don’t know how to do things can be
frustrating for some coders.

Todd

34

Jay L. wrote:

On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 23:09:39 -0500, James B. wrote:

I liked the Ruby community better when it placed more emphasis on code
and less on personalities.

Ruby was around before USENET??

You may have a different recollection of ruby-talk of a few years ago
than I.

What struck me was how much it was unlike other lists.

–
James B.

“The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance, but the illusion
of knowledge.”

  • D. Boorstin
35

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:

  1. You do not have to buy VMware to run Windows on a Linux box
    provided your hardware has the recent enhancements that allow Xen to run
    unmodified guests.

There are free versions of VMware one can use as well.

James

36

On Jan 2, 12:47 am, James B. [email protected] wrote:

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:

  1. You do not have to buy VMware to run Windows on a Linux box
    provided your hardware has the recent enhancements that allow Xen to run
    unmodified guests.

There are free versions of VMware one can use as well.

James

Right, well, I meant on my Mac.

The point was it’s just a huge pain, and I’ve asked about Windows C-
extensions here before and I obviously still have no clue what I’m
talking about when it comes to VC6 vs VC8 vs whatever… :wink:

I will say I don’t personally know any Windows/Ruby people using
anything but the OCI. Even now that I have a fair amount of experience
with *nix machines, just the idea of getting Cygwin running scares me.
I won’t say it’s not an option for Windows devs, but I will say I
don’t think it’s realistic for Cygwin/MiniGW (for Ruby specifically)
to ever gain anywhere near the deployment OCI has.

Anyways, back to Zed: Despite some people claiming “it’s not that
hard”, people willing to write robust, stable, C extensions for Ruby
are very few and far between it seems. Pure Rubyists are a dime a
dozen in comparison. At least that’s my perception of things.

37

James B. wrote:

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:

  1. You do not have to buy VMware to run Windows on a Linux box
    provided your hardware has the recent enhancements that allow Xen to run
    unmodified guests.

There are free versions of VMware one can use as well.

Yeah … I personally own a VMware Workstation 6 (Linux host) license,
however, so I don’t in general mess with them. :wink:

38

I will say I don’t personally know any Windows/Ruby people using
anything but the OCI. Even now that I have a fair amount of experience
with *nix machines, just the idea of getting Cygwin running scares me.
I won’t say it’s not an option for Windows devs, but I will say I
don’t think it’s realistic for Cygwin/MiniGW (for Ruby specifically)
to ever gain anywhere near the deployment OCI has.

I have to agree there. I’ve used Cygwin on Windows a bit but it’s just
not the same.

Anyways, back to Zed: Despite some people claiming “it’s not that
hard”, people willing to write robust, stable, C extensions for Ruby
are very few and far between it seems. Pure Rubyists are a dime a
dozen in comparison. At least that’s my perception of things.

Smart people always complain that their cleverest acrobatics are not
that hard. (Diplomatic no, smart yes.)

–
Giles B.

Podcast: http://hollywoodgrit.blogspot.com
Blog: http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com
Portfolio: http://www.gilesgoatboy.org
Tumblelog: http://giles.tumblr.com

39

On Wed, 2 Jan 2008, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:

  1. You do not have to buy VMware to run Windows on a Linux box
    provided your hardware has the recent enhancements that allow Xen to run
    unmodified guests. Xen is a bear to set up from raw source, but as I
    understand it, it is fairly painless under RHEL 5/CentOS 5 and some
    recent versions of Fedora. You do have to read the documentation, but
    there is documentation. :slight_smile: I can’t offer you any advice for
    Macintoshes … I’ve never owned one and odds are I never will.

You can also instead use VirtualBox which is pretty much “click and run”
(aka ‘apt-get install virtualbox’) at least under the Debian flavour of
Linux. And it also runs under Windows…
*t

–

40

Sam S. wrote:

The point was it’s just a huge pain, and I’ve asked about Windows C-
extensions here before and I obviously still have no clue what I’m
talking about when it comes to VC6 vs VC8 vs whatever… :wink:

Well, briefly – in most cases, a Ruby extension written in C needs to
be compiled and “linked” (converted to a DLL) with the same tool set
that was used to compile and link the Ruby executable. So … if you
rebuild the Ruby executable with gcc, you need to recompile and relink
any C-language extensions that way as well. And people who provide
binary gems for Windows Ruby need to provide them compiled with the same
compiler/linker that was used to build Ruby. So there needs to be some
kind of working consensus as to who does what when with which tools, or
nothing works except pure Ruby.

I will say I don’t personally know any Windows/Ruby people using
anything but the OCI. Even now that I have a fair amount of experience
with *nix machines, just the idea of getting Cygwin running scares me.
I won’t say it’s not an option for Windows devs, but I will say I
don’t think it’s realistic for Cygwin/MiniGW (for Ruby specifically)
to ever gain anywhere near the deployment OCI has.

I use both the OCI and Cygwin Ruby occasionally, but I’m always
careful not to lock myself into either. I’ve never used MinGW, but I do
have it on the machine because some other open source software depends
on it.

Cygwin is easy to install and maintain. You go to www.cygwin.com,
download and run “setup.exe”, and you get a graphical installer that
downloads stuff and puts it on your machine. I originally installed it
because I didn’t want to buy a commercial X terminal emulator for
Windows, but I have since installed the whole enchilada. You can run
all the LAMP-stack servers on it, and you can run Rails on it. But it’s
not the “preferred” way of doing those things.