Posted by Curt Hibbs
Wed, 31 Aug 2005 07:00:00 GMT
David Geary just posted this excellent analysis of why he thinks that Rails is near the tipping point and will soon become widely adopted. Its definitely worth reading.
I particularly liked the list of well known Java personalities who have already enthusiastically embraced Rails:
The preceeding connectors and mavens have all become passionate evangelists for Rails and through their blogs, training courses, and public speaking engagements, have managed to infect thousands of people world-wide with the Rails gospel.
There are certainly more names that could be added to this list, but its pretty impressive as it stands!
Posted in rails | no comments
Posted by Curt Hibbs
Tue, 30 Aug 2005 07:00:00 GMT
Tim Bray, the co-inventor of XML, has some positive things to say about Ruby. He also, really likes the book Programming Ruby (aka the Pickaxe book):
The book is good; really exceptionally good. And, since there’s no way to avoid comparisons with That Other Language: Based on first impressions and light exposure (a basis that matters a lot) Ruby seems better-documented and easier to get into than Python. I’ve actually written (a little) production code in Python, but I always had the feeling that there was lots of stuff going on I didn’t understand; a couple of days in, I think I have a better grasp on what Ruby’s up to, even where I’m not looking.
(via lesscode.org)
Posted in ruby | no comments
Posted by Curt Hibbs
Fri, 26 Aug 2005 07:00:00 GMT
Kevin Barnes has reframed the static vs. dynamic language debate in terms of their essential philosophical approaches: freedom vs. safety. This is the best analysis and exposition I have ever read. It definitely qualifies as a seminal work on this subject.
He has not only reframed the debate (correctly, in my opinion) but he has also distilled the essential ramifications of each side’s point of view.
Safety isn’t safe and freedom isn’t free
Both sets of languages are making tradeoffs about what they view as the most important features of a language. The freedom languages are choosing powerful feature sets and the safety languages favor clearer contracts and commonly readable syntax. These are choices about how best to achieve the goals of programming.
Many thanks to lesscode.org for bringing this excellent essay to my attention.
Posted in ruby, software development | no comments
Posted by Curt Hibbs
Wed, 10 Aug 2005 07:00:00 GMT
Long time Rubyists already know about Rake (Ruby’s equivalent to Make and Ant), but this may be news to our many new friends in the Ruby world.
Martin Fowler just wrote a very readable exploration showing how Rake has replaced his use of Ant. He also spends a considerable amount of time explaining the problem that build systems address, and the differences in how Make, Ant, and Rake solve these problems.
If you use Ant or Make you should read this. If you don’t use Ant or Make you can still read it… I won’t tell. ;-)
no comments
Posted by Curt Hibbs
Tue, 09 Aug 2005 07:00:00 GMT
Ok, I can’t stand it any more… I just burst out laughing and my
coworkers are giving me that suspicious eye.
This “Ruby on Rael” stuff was ok when I saw the original
photo mockup (Sam
Ruby on Rael
Dornfest). I was even more amused when I
saw the real thing.
But I totally lost it when I read that Sam was working his way through
the Rails book and then this
comment to Sam
Ruby (posted by Rabble of
Odeo fame):
Things will get really confusing if you start doing ruby development
sam. It’s hard enough to find information about xml and feed related
issues in the ruby language. If you started contributing to ruby related
projects it’ll even get more confusing…
Maybe we need some way of resolving the namespace conflict,
ruby-lang and ruby-person?
All we need now is a ruby project called ‘sam’ then it will get to
be really fun.
It’d be great to have you playing with ruby, name space conflicts
aside.
Posted in rails | no comments
Posted by Curt Hibbs
Fri, 05 Aug 2005 07:00:00 GMT
O’Reilly’s CodeZoo was launched last April supporting only Java, but just two days ago a new release of CodeZoo now includes Ruby and Python!
CodeZoo is a site for any developer who wants to avoid writing code. We believe the best code is the code you don’t have to write—the pieces already done for you, as well or better as you would do them yourself.
CodeZoo exists to help you find high-quality, freely available, reusable components, getting you past the repetitive parts of coding, and onto the rest and the best of your projects. It’s a fast-forward button for your compiler.
This is something that the Ruby community badly needed: a centralized place where Ruby packages can be categorized, reviewed, rated, and commented on. CodeZoo goes beyond even this with download tracking, RSS feeds, and much more.
This is an excellent compliment to RubyForge. RubyForge is an excellent home for open source Ruby projects, but provides no way to review, rate, or comment on Ruby packages. This makes it hard to find things and determine the quality of what you do find.
What would be really useful would be some basic cross-site integration between CodeZoo and RubyForge. I’m going to think about what could be done here and see if I can cajole the masters of both sites to cooperate for the benefit of us Ruby developers. But even as things stand today, this is a major step forward.
What you can do
The benefit of CodeZoo comes from us, the Ruby developers, when we add to its knowledge base. Please take some time to go to CodeZoo and review, comment, and rate various Ruby packages. O’Reilly has put a lot of effort into this site. Now its up to us to make it truly useful.
Posted in ruby | no comments
Posted by Curt Hibbs
Wed, 03 Aug 2005 07:00:00 GMT
Last night, David Heinemeier Hansson was given the Google/O’Reilly Best Hacker of the Year award for Ruby on Rails.
I think this is well deserved for someone who has changed the way we think about building web applications.
Congratulations!
Posted in rails | no comments
