On Fri, 15 Dec 2006, Jason Roelofs wrote:

>  I guess I should have expounded on my use of the word "professional".
>  Everything you say, Dave, is right, but we are forgetting the even larger
>  community that decrys Ruby as too slow and a "hobbyist language," that is
>  "not fit for enterprise (*shudder*) use". I myself have use Ruby in a
>  professional project, so I am not saying anything against that, but more of
>  those people that I run into and deal with that just don't understand Ruby
>  because it's too young and slow, usually comparing it to Perl.

which is a major apples to oranges comparisson.  if you write packages in perl
- the object hack they did - then perl is more often slower than ruby for
modular oo code.  also, to be frank, this is like saying turtles are faster
that slugs: they are both slow.  so is java.  so is c++.  if you want fast
write c, ocaml (or maybe fortran) period.

>  Also, the issue that it's something else that needs to be installed has been
>  a hindrance to the adoption of the language in larger companies, while Perl
>  and Java are automatically installed on any server. This is why JRuby is
>  such a great project (as most people have realized and hell is the basis of
>  the project IIRC) and it will help put Ruby in a more "professional" light
>  to the rest of IT.

true.  still, all the decent operating systems ship with it now.

>  I wasn't trying to say that Ruby is not to be used professionally yet; the
>  language has definitely proved itself many times in such environments.
>  However, to get more people (especially the Perl guys) to even try the
>  language, these improvements need to be made. Then there will only be the "I
>  like Perl better" argument, for which we can reply "Your loss."

i'm not sure that's true.  i've converted many perl coders here at noaa - perl
programmers are often quite pragmatic and, in my experience, most will prefer
either ruby or python (religious issue) if someone shows them even a little
code.

-a
-- 
if you find yourself slandering anybody, first imagine that your mouth is
filled with excrement.  it will break you of the habit quickly enough. - the
dalai lama