Comments on: Is Ruby the New VB? http://tssblog.blogs.techtarget.com/2007/10/30/is-ruby-the-new-vb/ Fri, 25 Jul 2008 14:03:01 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=wordpress-mu-1.0 by: Nis Wilson Nissen http://tssblog.blogs.techtarget.com/2007/10/30/is-ruby-the-new-vb/#comment-1024 Wed, 28 Nov 2007 18:03:37 +0000 http://tssblog.blogs.techtarget.com/2007/10/30/is-ruby-the-new-vb/#comment-1024 @emvee "real programmers use real programming languages" - please name what you consider real programming languages. Anyway, please take a look at the following talks / presentations to get better understanding why Ruby is becoming more popular: Via InfoQ: Fred George - Applying Agile to Ruby http://www.infoq.com/presentations/applying-agile-to-ruby Via Channel9: Dave Thomas and Erik Meier: http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=349220 Chad Fowler and Bob Martin: http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=350187 Cheers, Nis @emvee “real programmers use real programming languages” - please name what you consider real programming languages.

Anyway, please take a look at the following talks / presentations to get better understanding why Ruby is becoming more popular:

Via InfoQ:

Fred George - Applying Agile to Ruby
http://www.infoq.com/presentations/applying-agile-to-ruby

Via Channel9:

Dave Thomas and Erik Meier:
http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=349220

Chad Fowler and Bob Martin:
http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=350187

Cheers,
Nis

]]> by: Dean Thomas http://tssblog.blogs.techtarget.com/2007/10/30/is-ruby-the-new-vb/#comment-829 Wed, 07 Nov 2007 18:10:23 +0000 http://tssblog.blogs.techtarget.com/2007/10/30/is-ruby-the-new-vb/#comment-829 LOL, David wins the thread! That there are still people out there that think as emvee does just astounds me. I was writing "mission critical" apps in VB in the 90's and I'm still doing it today. Don't really have a comment on Ruby, but David's comment made me laugh out loud... LOL, David wins the thread! That there are still people out there that think as emvee does just astounds me. I was writing “mission critical” apps in VB in the 90’s and I’m still doing it today.

Don’t really have a comment on Ruby, but David’s comment made me laugh out loud…

]]> by: David Novakovic http://tssblog.blogs.techtarget.com/2007/10/30/is-ruby-the-new-vb/#comment-827 Mon, 05 Nov 2007 05:30:24 +0000 http://tssblog.blogs.techtarget.com/2007/10/30/is-ruby-the-new-vb/#comment-827 @emvee : the 80's called, they want their programmer back. @emvee : the 80’s called, they want their programmer back.

]]> by: Huw Collingbourne http://tssblog.blogs.techtarget.com/2007/10/30/is-ruby-the-new-vb/#comment-820 Fri, 02 Nov 2007 16:30:46 +0000 http://tssblog.blogs.techtarget.com/2007/10/30/is-ruby-the-new-vb/#comment-820 Ruby - and, in their various ways, Python and VB - have different sets of strengths (and weaknesses) from the all-dominant C-family (C++, Java, C#) languages. Currently Ruby already has a number of features that make it a good choice for specific types of application - for example, its metaprogramming makes it great for wiring a database back-end to a visual front-end dynamically - something which is used extensively by the Rails framework (aka 'Ruby On Rails'). One of the things I personally like about Ruby is its 'deep object orientation'. Put simplly, Ruby adheres far more closley than other modern OOP languages to the fairly rigorous Smalltalk version of OOP. It would take a long time to go into this in any depth (too long for this comment). Just in case anyone is interested, I have written a few articles on this topic: http://www.sapphiresteel.com/Ruby-The-Smalltalk-Way http://www.sapphiresteel.com/Ruby-The-Smalltalk-Way-1 http://www.sapphiresteel.com/Ruby-The-Smalltalk-Way-2-A Ruby does have two big deficiencies' when considered as a language for 'general purpose' programming, however. 1) Speed. By comparison with C++ or C#, it's incredibly slow. This is, however, being addressed with the development of Ruby compilers such as JRuby for Java and IronRuby for .NET. 2) Development tools. Until quite recently, IDEs for Ruby were very under powered. In fact, to this day, a great many Ruby programmers use a fairly simple editor and no debugger. That situation is changing. There are now IDEs of varying sophistication for Eclipse, Netbeans etc. not to mention my company's Visual Studio IDE, Ruby In Steel. In my view, the final piece of the jigsaw will arrive when Ruby has a full integrated visual designer. The combination of simple syntax, really thorough OOP, an efficient compiler and an event-driven drag-and-drop form designer will make Ruby a very attractive option for both standalone and web application development. best wishes Huw Ruby - and, in their various ways, Python and VB - have different sets of strengths (and weaknesses) from the all-dominant C-family (C++, Java, C#) languages. Currently Ruby already has a number of features that make it a good choice for specific types of application - for example, its metaprogramming makes it great for wiring a database back-end to a visual front-end dynamically - something which is used extensively by the Rails framework (aka ‘Ruby On Rails’).

One of the things I personally like about Ruby is its ‘deep object orientation’. Put simplly, Ruby adheres far more closley than other modern OOP languages to the fairly rigorous Smalltalk version of OOP. It would take a long time to go into this in any depth (too long for this comment). Just in case anyone is interested, I have written a few articles on this topic:

http://www.sapphiresteel.com/Ruby-The-Smalltalk-Way
http://www.sapphiresteel.com/Ruby-The-Smalltalk-Way-1
http://www.sapphiresteel.com/Ruby-The-Smalltalk-Way-2-A

Ruby does have two big deficiencies’ when considered as a language for ‘general purpose’ programming, however.

1) Speed. By comparison with C++ or C#, it’s incredibly slow. This is, however, being addressed with the development of Ruby compilers such as JRuby for Java and IronRuby for .NET.

2) Development tools. Until quite recently, IDEs for Ruby were very under powered. In fact, to this day, a great many Ruby programmers use a fairly simple editor and no debugger. That situation is changing. There are now IDEs of varying sophistication for Eclipse, Netbeans etc. not to mention my company’s Visual Studio IDE, Ruby In Steel.

In my view, the final piece of the jigsaw will arrive when Ruby has a full integrated visual designer. The combination of simple syntax, really thorough OOP, an efficient compiler and an event-driven drag-and-drop form designer will make Ruby a very attractive option for both standalone and web application development.

best wishes

Huw

]]> by: hoolio http://tssblog.blogs.techtarget.com/2007/10/30/is-ruby-the-new-vb/#comment-818 Fri, 02 Nov 2007 14:40:26 +0000 http://tssblog.blogs.techtarget.com/2007/10/30/is-ruby-the-new-vb/#comment-818 "do you think toyota, exxon, citicorp, the defense dept, at&t, etc would want their enterprise and mission critical operations developed in ruby/vb/python or flash?" If they were truly worried about "mission critical" they would be using Eiffel. Ruby and Python are definitely "real programming languages". Unless your definition of "real programming language" is one that requires a dumb/inept compiler/runtime that requires the programmer to help it along every step of the way... “do you think toyota, exxon, citicorp, the defense dept, at&t, etc would want their enterprise and mission critical operations developed in ruby/vb/python or flash?”

If they were truly worried about “mission critical” they would be using Eiffel.

Ruby and Python are definitely “real programming languages”.

Unless your definition of “real programming language” is one that requires a dumb/inept compiler/runtime that requires the programmer to help it along every step of the way…

]]> by: emvee http://tssblog.blogs.techtarget.com/2007/10/30/is-ruby-the-new-vb/#comment-815 Fri, 02 Nov 2007 05:26:44 +0000 http://tssblog.blogs.techtarget.com/2007/10/30/is-ruby-the-new-vb/#comment-815 like basic, then vb, ruby may make it simple to do simple things, but to do complex, scalable, robust, non-trivial development requires more sophisticated tools fact is, for all but commodity developement, which is increasingly done by amateurs, you need real skill, real understanding, and real tools how many operating systems are written in 'scripting languages'? how many banking/stock/credit transaction processing systems? missle and satelite guidance systems? large scale engineering design tools? network protocol stacks? industrial control and monitoring systems? supply chain and inventory management systems? do you think toyota, exxon, citicorp, the defense dept, at&t, etc would want their enterprise and mission critical operations developed in ruby/vb/python or flash? let the kiddies play with their toys real programmers use real programming languages like basic, then vb, ruby may make it simple to do simple things, but to do complex, scalable, robust, non-trivial development requires more sophisticated tools

fact is, for all but commodity developement, which is increasingly done by amateurs, you need real skill, real understanding, and real tools

how many operating systems are written in ’scripting languages’? how many banking/stock/credit transaction processing systems? missle and satelite guidance systems? large scale engineering design tools? network protocol stacks? industrial control and monitoring systems? supply chain and inventory management systems?

do you think toyota, exxon, citicorp, the defense dept, at&t, etc would want their enterprise and mission critical operations developed in ruby/vb/python or flash?

let the kiddies play with their toys

real programmers use real programming languages

]]> by: Huw Collingbourne http://tssblog.blogs.techtarget.com/2007/10/30/is-ruby-the-new-vb/#comment-811 Wed, 31 Oct 2007 18:15:26 +0000 http://tssblog.blogs.techtarget.com/2007/10/30/is-ruby-the-new-vb/#comment-811 Further to the above, some of you may be interested to take a look at a short walkthrough of our IronRuby form designer which I've just put online: http://www.sapphiresteel.com/IronRuby-Visual-Form-Designer best wishes Huw Further to the above, some of you may be interested to take a look at a short walkthrough of our IronRuby form designer which I’ve just put online:

http://www.sapphiresteel.com/IronRuby-Visual-Form-Designer

best wishes
Huw

]]> by: Mike Woodhouse http://tssblog.blogs.techtarget.com/2007/10/30/is-ruby-the-new-vb/#comment-810 Wed, 31 Oct 2007 12:27:21 +0000 http://tssblog.blogs.techtarget.com/2007/10/30/is-ruby-the-new-vb/#comment-810 Something that keeps floating to the top of my feeble consciousness is that the VB6 runtime is nearly 10 years old now, but still lives in its VBA incarnation. That Microsoft have done nothing significant to advance it must suggest that they no longer wish to. But there must be billions of lines of VBA in (particularly) Excel workbooks all over the world and the owners of those workbooks would quite reasonably be miffed if backward compatibility was lost. And let's face it, the .NET support for office is, while moderately impressive and to some extent useful, not a macro language nor ever likely to be high performance. Now enter the Dynamic Language Runtime, IronPython, IronRuby and the like. How hard would it be to implement VB6 syntax to deliver IronVBA? Then we really would be talking - Excel macro development in Python? No problem. Ruby? (drool). Whatever you want. If Microsoft aren't planning to go in this direction then they darn well ought to be. Something that keeps floating to the top of my feeble consciousness is that the VB6 runtime is nearly 10 years old now, but still lives in its VBA incarnation. That Microsoft have done nothing significant to advance it must suggest that they no longer wish to. But there must be billions of lines of VBA in (particularly) Excel workbooks all over the world and the owners of those workbooks would quite reasonably be miffed if backward compatibility was lost. And let’s face it, the .NET support for office is, while moderately impressive and to some extent useful, not a macro language nor ever likely to be high performance.

Now enter the Dynamic Language Runtime, IronPython, IronRuby and the like. How hard would it be to implement VB6 syntax to deliver IronVBA?

Then we really would be talking - Excel macro development in Python? No problem. Ruby? (drool). Whatever you want.

If Microsoft aren’t planning to go in this direction then they darn well ought to be.

]]> by: Gopi Nathan http://tssblog.blogs.techtarget.com/2007/10/30/is-ruby-the-new-vb/#comment-809 Wed, 31 Oct 2007 08:59:31 +0000 http://tssblog.blogs.techtarget.com/2007/10/30/is-ruby-the-new-vb/#comment-809 Not sure whether Ruby can be compared to Visual Basic... Happy to see the comments on non-dependence on curly brackets (a menace to type in using European keyboard)...In fact it is possible to write an entire Ruby program without using a single curly bracket. This is impossible in Java or C++. Let's wait and see what Sun and Microsoft are going to do with their support for Ruby...Hope they don't screw it up, if not enhance the product!! Not sure whether Ruby can be compared to Visual Basic… Happy to see the comments on non-dependence on curly brackets (a menace to type in using European keyboard)…In fact it is possible to write an entire Ruby program without using a single curly bracket. This is impossible in Java or C++. Let’s wait and see what Sun and Microsoft are going to do with their support for Ruby…Hope they don’t screw it up, if not enhance the product!!

]]> by: Joe http://tssblog.blogs.techtarget.com/2007/10/30/is-ruby-the-new-vb/#comment-808 Wed, 31 Oct 2007 02:00:12 +0000 http://tssblog.blogs.techtarget.com/2007/10/30/is-ruby-the-new-vb/#comment-808 Ruby could very well be the new VB, but only for select things. Lets inspect. Ruby is/has * Very simple syntax => Low learning curve. * Newbie friendly * big community of rather non-skilled programmers. Most come from PHP backgrounds (thanks to Rails). This is changing, but the hackerish mentality of Ruby community screams "unprofessional" Ruby had a shot until the community got diluted by PHP migrant programmers and their ilk. Rails is a nice framework built upon a great language, but the damage in reputation is done. Python will win out for the geeks and professional programmers for dynamic scripting. Ruby will live on for those who have done Ruby for a while but someone looking to pick up a new language for their toolkit would probably shy away because of the stigma Ruby is gaining. Heck, I know! I started a couple of Ruby/Rails groups and I am trying to distance myself from them for the sake of my consulting business. Ruby could very well be the new VB, but only for select things. Lets inspect.

Ruby is/has
* Very simple syntax => Low learning curve.
* Newbie friendly
* big community of rather non-skilled programmers. Most come from PHP backgrounds (thanks to Rails). This is changing, but the hackerish mentality of Ruby community screams “unprofessional”

Ruby had a shot until the community got diluted by PHP migrant programmers and their ilk. Rails is a nice framework built upon a great language, but the damage in reputation is done. Python will win out for the geeks and professional programmers for dynamic scripting. Ruby will live on for those who have done Ruby for a while but someone looking to pick up a new language for their toolkit would probably shy away because of the stigma Ruby is gaining.

Heck, I know! I started a couple of Ruby/Rails groups and I am trying to distance myself from them for the sake of my consulting business.

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