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List:       ruby-talk
Subject:    Re: McGovern Likes JRuby...
From:       "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <znmeb () cesmail ! net>
Date:       2006-11-11 23:12:41
Message-ID: 455658D9.4040906 () cesmail ! net
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David Vallner wrote:
> M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
>   
>> Well ... I know how *I* feel about it:
>>
>> http://borasky-research.blogspot.com/2006/11/nitty-gritty-of-ruby_11.html
>>
>>     
>
> Impose JRuby on the world? I have my doubts Sun would even try - the
> time of Java hype marketing is past.
Well, the original poster wanted jRuby to be the one true way. I was 
simply saying that wasn't possible; even Sun couldn't do it. I too doubt 
if they would try. But Sun is a big enough company to try things that 
might not necessarily work.

The time of Java hype marketing is past? Maybe, but the language seems 
to be an 800-pound gorilla in some peoples' minds. I can't imagine Sun 
*not* doing everything they can to insure that jRuby succeeds and wins 
business for Sun.

> And I don't think JRuby will be as
> earthshaking to both the Ruby and Java worlds as some people make it out
> to be. By adopting JRuby as the implementation language for the Java
> platform, you are also partially dropping the advantages that keeping to
> Java has (existing infrastructure, experience, tool support). In the
> end, it might be a useful tool on both sides, but I don't see paranoid
> managers adopting Ruby en masse just because it has a J prepended to it
> - not all of them are that gullible.
>   
Again, *I* don't support dropping other implementations of Ruby. If 
nothing else, Microsoft will make at least one release of at least one 
Ruby implementation. And I'm sure Matz and Koichi will continue leading 
the community path.

What I'm *not* sure about is whether Rubinius  will flourish. Cardinal 
seems pretty much dead, but I think there's a lot of energy behind Rubinius.
> That the JVM become the primary runtime for Ruby is somehow laughable.
> So far, it hasn't become the primary runtime for any major programming
> language that isn't Java, evidence would suggest that this remains the
> case. It would be foolish for performance reasons if nothing else, a
> dedicated optimised VM will do better when treated with Ruby
> idiosyncratisms like pervasive use of closures.
>   
But we're talking about two different things here -- a community and 
commercial enterprises. The community can afford to strive for 
perfection. Commercial enterprises can not. They must *satisfice*, not 
optimize!

> The signal-to-noise ratio of blog topics that concern both Java and Ruby
> has been abysmal unless it was about JRuby in specific, I hate to see
> random opinionated rants and wishful thinking cloud that topic too.
>   
Still, you have to acknowledge that jRuby is now a commercial project 
funded by a major hardware and software vendor. That's going to draw 
opinions and rants and wishful thinking and love and hate and arguments 
and FUD. I'm surprised someone from Microsoft hasn't attacked it 
publicly yet.

jRuby is an investment. Only time will tell whether that investment will 
pay off and what the payoffs will be. I don't know enough about the Java 
runtime (or the CLR or Parrot, for that matter) to predict success or 
failure. I'm personally much more interested in the open source 
community efforts. There are many more opportunities for me to create 
signal there than there are in two corporations, neither of which pays 
me a dime. :)

-- 
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky, FBG, AB, PTA, PGS, MS, MNLP, NST, ACMC(P)
http://borasky-research.blogspot.com/

If God had meant for carrots to be eaten cooked, He would have given rabbits fire.


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