How to not get the point in many steps
It's fairly easy to not get the point when you wish away most of the problems. Step one: wave your hands at contrary evidence as a way to get large amounts of contrary evidence out of site:
The focus of this blog is on Ruby and not on other dynamic languages. For those, they will get their own blog entries. Ruby, to me feels like a trainwreck waiting to happen. So lets list out reasons why Ruby currently makes zero sense for developing enterprise applications
Translated: "Ignore all that Perl, Python, Smalltalk, and Lisp out there. When I said "dynamic, I meant Ruby!". Uh huh. Having done some hand waving to dismiss the decent sized amount of contrary evidence, let's move to step two: without citing any evidence, call all the available book (on Ruby only, naturally) bad:
While there are lots of books on Ruby, none of them are good. Most are mediocre and deal with the simplistic aspects of writing software. The publishing community tends to focus on introductory titles and eschew books that are for folks who already know how to program, which constrains one's ability to do anything complex. Of course the agile community, doesn't count learning on the job as part of the cost of a project
The straw man is taking shape now: "No one uses dynamic languages, err, I mean, Ruby, and besides, the books all stink". On to step three: invoke analysts and large consulting firms as the authorities, and use the time honored tactic of assertion from authority:
Much of the guidance that the enterprises receive come from either big consulting firms such as Accenture, DiamondCluster, Wipro, Bearingpoint and others. If it isn't on their radar then it probably won't reach critical mass. Likewise, the other perspective comes from industry analysts who usually make irresponsible recommendations and oversummarizations of most problem spaces. In this particular scenario, industry analysts aren't even wasting their own time talking much about Ruby.
Yeah, the delivery track record of large consulting firms is so good. These are the outfits that wave five experts at you, and then - once the ink is dry - bury you in an army of untrained new hires. Let's bring in those crowd following analyst firms while we're at it, too - they always do a great job of following the money... err, the trends. Or something.
I could go on, but the post only gets more incoherent from there. What I'd like to know is this: why is this guy so threatened by dynamic languages in general, and Ruby in particular? You might almost get the idea that he's heavily invested in the status quo, and doesn't want to see things change. The tip off there is a few paragraphs down from where I got tired of abusing the article, when he brings up "enterprise architects".
Comments
puzzled
[Isaac Gouy] March 19, 2006 17:50:41.131
Why is it a problem that the guy said this particular blog entry will focus on Ruby, and he'll deal with other dynamic languages in other blog entries?
To paraphrase, when he said Ruby he meant Ruby.
Ruby in its place
[Anthony Cowley] March 19, 2006 22:52:17.663
Does C# qualify as a dynamic language yet
[Steve] March 20, 2006 6:28:53.867
There's an article on .NET 3.0 in the german magazine iX (April). notable new features: implicit typing, lambda expressions (not clear if these are full closures or not, but there's always 3.1), class extensions (a la ruby and smalltalk) and language integrated query (LINQ) - a way of running relational expressions in code
Here's the LINQ page http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/future/linq/
In any case, dynamic language features are beginning to hit the mainstream. Whether C# is as lean as it should be — given all the cruftiness of Java it's hauling along for backwards-comopatibility sake — is another issue.
C# dynamic language features
[Isaac Gouy] March 20, 2006 11:51:11.113
Steve dynamic language features are beginning to hit the mainstream
Have a look at the previous blog entries and comments on C# and LINQ
- The "Excitement" of LINQ
- Responding to my LINQ Post
-
Simplicity versus... Something Else
Then explain what a "dynamic language feature" means to you.Stop Making Sense
[Patrick Logan] March 20, 2006 20:57:02.841
"given all the cruftiness of Java it's hauling along for backwards-comopatibility sake"
Huh? C# is not backward compatible with Java. If C# has cruft similar (but not identical) to Java's then it is in there for some other reason, like to appeal to Java programmers but allow them to run the same code in both Java and C#.
Cruft? Yes. But don't blame Java for that cruft.
Try again
[Patrick Logan] March 21, 2006 0:11:47.040
"given all the cruftiness of Java it's hauling along for backwards-comopatibility sake"
Huh? C# is not backward compatible with Java. If C# has cruft similar (but not identical) to Java's then it is in there for some other reason, like to appeal to Java programmers but
allowrather: prevent them to run the same code in both Java and C#.Cruft? Yes. But don't blame Java for that cruft.