Why Ruby?

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Saturday 11 December 2010 00:01:35 Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 12/10/10 10:16 PM, Christopher Nicholson-Sauls wrote:
> > On 12/10/10 19:26, Ary Borenszweig wrote:
> >> http://vimeo.com/17420638
> >> 
> >> A very interesting talk.
> >> 
> >> I used to like D. To write code in a high level while at the same
> >> time being very close to the machine, with class invariants, unit
> >> tests and many other features seemed very appealing. But I always
> >> felt there was something wrong.
> >> 
> >> About a year ago I met Ruby. Now I find languages like Java, C#,
> >> Python and D kind of ugly and uncomfortable. Why? Exactly because of
> >> what it is said in that video.
> >> 
> >> This is not to start a flame war or trolling, it's just to show you
> >> why I changed my mind so much about D, and why I think (IMHO) you
> >> should care about naming conventions (like bearophile says), more
> >> powerful unittests (and not having unittests integrated into the
> >> language but rather being able to build your own test frameworks
> >> with ease) and stop caring about being C-syntax friendly. The world
> >> doesn't need that many semicolons and parenthesis. :-)
> > 
> > I'm a strange one.  I use Ruby, and D.  (And a couple of others...)  I
> > use the tool that feels best for the job, whatever that may be at a
> > given time.  Sitting on a disc somewhere are some personal tools I used
> > to use when working with D... which are themselves written in Ruby (and
> > bash script, but hey).
> > 
> > Then again, I'm the same one who really really likes Ruby on Rails...
> > and yet still does most things with PHP.  Why?  Well for one, because
> > for plenty of projects, Rails is less an aid and more a hindrance.  (And
> > yes, before someone brings it up, I'm well aware of CakePHP... and don't
> > care for it much.)
> > 
> > There are times in D when I find myself wishing, momentarily, for the
> > loose typing of Ruby... but then there are times in Ruby when I find
> > myself wishing for stricter typing.
> > 
> > There are times when I wish D had open classes... but then there are
> > times when Ruby's open classes give me headaches.
> > 
> > I could go on like this... but the point was really just: use the right
> > tool for the job.  Keep several tools in your toolbox.  There is no "THE
> > BEST LANGUAGE OMG!!!"  There is just the best one for a given programmer
> > in a given scenario.  Some of the things I've done could probably have
> > been better written in, say, Pike!  But I don't really know Pike (very
> > well), and don't feel the need to learn it just for those few things
> > that might have benefited.
> > 
> > -- Chris N-S
> 
> Agreed. One issue with the talk is non-acceptance of "the right tool for
> the job" (the speaker literally says he's tired of that phrase). There
> is one best tool - and that's Ruby. Ahem.

LOL. I'd _love_ to use D at work, but so much of our code is in C++ and must 
compile with Visual Studio that the fact that C++ doesn't integrate with D all 
that well and the fact that you have to use dmc on Windows for the C or C++ code 
if you want to link it with D code make it so that it doesn't make any sense at 
all to use D at this point.

And of course, there are plenty of cases where a particular language is just 
incredibly well suited for a particular job, and the best general purpose 
language just isn't as good.

I think that it's good to strive to a have a language that is excellent for most 
use cases, but ultimately, you always have to pick the best tool for the job. No 
language is the best for all scenarios even if it's the best for most scenarios.

- Jonathan M Davis