All the cool kids use Ruby | Hacker News Reader

All the cool kids use Ruby

xtranormal.com

39 pointsJd17 comments

Meh, less of a true ring than the other one. Plenty of top sites use Ruby. A "big rewrite" is always a bad idea, no matter what the source or destination languages. Finally, scaling is not a magical property of a language or framework. You can write horrible, slow, shit PHP applications and elegant, fast, large-scale ruby applications. It's down to the competence of the programmers, not the language.

I use Ruby and I love the language. I think every developer gets flack for using whatever tool they're using. Honestly, why do other people care what language you use? If you're comfortable with PHP, use PHP. If you love Ruby, use Ruby. But if you're not using it, why should anyone care what someone uses? I might make it known that I don't like PHP or Java. But I won't say that I think PHP programmers suck.

To draw some parallels, the detractors remind me of the opponents of gay marriage. Sure, they might not approve of it. But it's certainly not their business to judge what language anyone should use. The trolls out there aren't good for the programming ecosystem. Use whatever tool that makes you happy.

Sure, elegance is attainable in any language and I definitely agree that large rewrites (especially involving a language change) are at best perilous, however it seemed to me that the OP's point was largely about common attitudes.

Having seen a few large projects detonate under similar circumstances as described in the movie I believe he has a point. In all instances the timeline went something like this:

- several year old codebase (now bloated with so many change requests the original design is completely buried)

- new project manager enters stage right with a gleam in his and and a plan to "modernize" the codebase

- Ruby selected as the language of choice for the rewrite

- 8 months to a year of code churn later project is abandoned

Now given language hopping large scale rewrites are typically a bad idea, especially if you're converting an existing shop with a different language of choice and established workflows, one has to ask what would lead any otherwise rational individual to decide engaging in a project of this scope is viable.

In all of the instances of this kind of project flameout I've observed a PM (or higher) was so enamored of some "sexy"* new technology that all other concerns where cast aside and predictably carnage ensued.

* For values of sexy that include: Ruby, NoSQL and just about any other arguably (im)mature tech that's getting a lot of column inches in the tech blog arena.

The problem with rewrites is that most people don't appreciate how difficult they are or know that there are special skills required to execute them.

When done correctly rewrites can be wonderful things, but more often than not they are failures. Most software projects, rewrite or no, are mis-budgeted and mis-scheduled, rewrites are harder, more expensive, and take longer than the average green-field project, and so are proportionately less successful.

What was the other one? Do you have a link to it? There doesn't seem to be any reference to it on the site.

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/6995033/ - MongoDB is web scale

Statements like "[A technology] scales" are senseless even on their face. Scaling is an architectural challenge. Language matters, but it isn't the only factor and most likely isn't the most significant one. Claiming Ruby doesn't scale is even more idiotic since there are plenty of sites running Rails that have proven they could scale and whose response times are a lot less than 3s. I realize those are obvious gripes, but since this is on the front page I assume people thought it was interesting or informative in some way and I'm interested to hear their arguments.

Saying that a technology scales is (should be?) just shorthand for saying that a technology can be made to scale using only a reasonable amount of effort.

Or:

"There are well known and eminently achievable use patterns for achieving high scalability based on this technology."

So Rails gets the blame for the terrible executive leadership described here?

This is precisely the kind of hype we ruby devs do not need. Many of us are just ordinary people getting work done.

Unfortunately, there's no warning of bad language. Keep volume low ... several F-words.

I thought it was funny, even though I'm a well known Rubyist. Fuck Ruby!

I thought the video was funny, but was more impressed by the "If you can type, you can make a movie" concept. Very cool startup idea!

not the most enjoyable to watch though...

The second system syndrome is to blame here, not the framework.

I like the part where ruby developers get huge launch parties with pretty girls.

Haha, How the hell do software developers get groupies?

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