

IronRuby Manager Leaves Microsoft - spivey
http://blog.jimmy.schementi.com/2010/08/start-spreading-news-future-of-jimmy.html

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mkn
Possibly off-topic.

 _"However, a year ago the team shrunk by half and our agility was severely
limited. I’m omitting the internal reasons for this, as they are the typical
big-company middle-management issues every software developer has."_

This is one of the things that can happen to you when you work at Microsoft.
You can start thinking that the terrible work problems you face are both
"typical big-company...issues" and problems that "every developer" has to
face.

First, many of these issues, and especially their particular flavor, are not
general to the business. Second, not every developer works for a big company.
You have to get out and work elsewhere for a while to see this.

There's a minimsft.blogspot.com, but is there an equivalent for Apple? For
Google? If so, are they as well known? Do they draw knowledgeable commenters
from within the ranks of the host/target company?

There are many better places to work than Microsoft. The place seemed truly
pathological to me.

~~~
bad_user
> _There's a minimsft.blogspot.com, but is there an equivalent for Apple? For
> Google? If so, are they as well known? Do they draw knowledgeable commenters
> from within the ranks of the host/target company?_

Every corporation sucks in some way ... and if there isn't a minimsft
equivalent for Google/Apple ... that's a point in Microsoft's favor.

~~~
thought_alarm
Sorry, but your post is complete nonsense.

In my experience, all medium and large organizations in this industry have a
very unique culture that affects everything they do. For better or worse,
there's nothing like working at Microsoft. Personally, having the valuable
opportunity to see it up close, I would never work there and I'm not surprised
to read the accounts of those who have worked there.

~~~
bad_user
> _For better or worse, there's nothing like working at Microsoft ... I would
> never work there_

Dude, those 2 sentences contradict each other ... you either worked there and
know what you're talking about, or not.

~~~
rbanffy
Did you miss the "having the valuable opportunity to see it up close" part?

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DrJokepu
I am heartbroken to hear this. .Net, the Dynamic Language Runtime, IronPython
and IronRuby are incredibly awesome technologies and if instead of embracing
the cool aspects, Microsoft will focus only on the boring enterprisey bits in
the future I'll have no choice but stop being a .Net developer and switch to
something else. Which would be a shame because I really like those
technologies.

~~~
euroclydon
You could always write VBA-style macros in JS on Windows Office Live.

~~~
rbanffy
I appreciate the fine sarcasm of your post.

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petercooper
There's a big opportunity for the taking here for the right person with both
.Net and Ruby experience and enough time on their hands. IronRuby might be a
minor Ruby implementation but I suspect if it stays alive it could be a bigger
deal in the .Net world and there could be a great consultancy business off the
back of it, especially in skunkworks-type situations.

~~~
euroclydon
I had to look up "skunkworks." I was wondering if it was just work that
stinks, like people don't want to do it, but have to for some reason.

Well, besides being a Lockheed Martin trademark, apparently it means research
and innovation by a loosely coupled team. Are there great consulting
opportunities in research and innovation?

I think I'm seeing a pattern here. The main IronPython project I'm familiar
with is Resolver, a spreadsheet targeted at the financial world, and now this
guy leaves the IronRuby team to work for a company that consults for hedge
funds. What I don't get is, what the heck is so great about .NET for these
financial people? Can't they just run their calculations using scripting
languages that have been out for the last ten or twenty years? What do they
need the CLR/DLR for?

~~~
thibaut_barrere
> what the heck is so great about .NET for these financial people ?

A couple of points based on my experience at least:

\- UI components (such as DevExpress ones) for charts and grids, with fairly
good performance

\- easier interop with Excel/Word (yes, this is important!)

\- ability to reuse legacy C++ (I did this personally, porting and wrapping
code from Solaris to C# and .Net through managed C++)

\- C# itself is a good language, and it's easier to find recruits compared to
say Ruby or Python (at least here in France)

Where I've worked at least, almost nobody uses "scripting languages", it's all
Java or C# or C++.

I firmly believe that keeping IronRuby and IronPython alive will serve a
purpose for people working in these fields!

------
preek
I read this on the weekend just before I wanted to adopt IronPython into our
company. It was supposed to make C# obsolete.

Well.. what can I say. It sucks to use any M$ tech. I should stick to OSX and
Linux and leave my current employer due to strict use of M$ tech.

Sorry to say that man, but your story reads just like that to me.

I want to thank you for your great work, though. And I wish you all the best
for your NY future(;

~~~
topbanana
IronRuby was never supposed to make c# obsolete

~~~
gaustin
I think he meant that IronRuby was supposed to replace C# in his company.

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ruang
Interesting that he's going to a financial technology consulting firm whose
products include algorithmic trading. It seems like that would be one of the
last spaces to be interested in a dynamic scripting language versus pure
speed.

~~~
petercooper
C++ and C# are big deals in the financial industry, but remember that
programmer time is a lot more expensive than hardware time, and there could be
wins to be had in extremely rapid development.

~~~
ruang
Good point, hadn't thought of that. A dynamic scripting language could be
useful for backtesting as opposed to execution.

------
BrandonWatson
I had the good fortune to actually spend some time geeking out with Jimmy on
campus. Great guy, and he will be missed. If you are in NYC, reach out to him.
He's a geek worth knowing.

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heresy
Another straw for the camel's back. It's not far off breaking now, friends
have been tempting me with offers to return to my roots - Ruby/Linux. Fuck
Microsoft.

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euroclydon
Probably not that big of a deal if they stop supporting IronRuby. What's the
point anyhow? Ruby is most popular because of RoR and Microsoft already has an
MVC framework that works just fine. There was some very limited effort to port
ASP.NET MVC to IronRuby, but it looked dead in the water to me. Plus, I hear
straight up Ruby has built-in bindings for Windows, so IronRuby isn't
necessary for scripting either.

~~~
dschobel
As the author points out, he's concerned about the future about dynamic
languages on the .net platform in general. IronPython and IronRuby are just
two implementations of it.

The reason you should care (assuming you're a .net developer) is that the DLR
lets you do all sorts of cool things such as the following c# snippet calling
python code:

    
    
        ScriptRuntime py = Python.CreateRuntime();
        dynamic random = py.UseFile("random.py");
     
        //Make an array of numbers
        var items = Enumerable.Range(1, 7).ToArray();
        random.shuffle(items);
    

(source:
[http://www.hanselman.com/blog/C4AndTheDynamicKeywordWhirlwin...](http://www.hanselman.com/blog/C4AndTheDynamicKeywordWhirlwindTourAroundNET4AndVisualStudio2010Beta1.aspx))

Being able to have ruby, c#, python, et al all running in the same runtime
with a clear stack you can inspect across the languages is awesome stuff.

~~~
euroclydon
I guess when I say "what's the point?" I mean, what's the point of really
wasting so much time and effort getting Ruby running on .NET in general? And I
say that as primarily an MS developer. It's all just a plot to sell expensive
licenses and thus will never have good community backing. Look what this guy
went through. He's talented. It's a shame he didn't work for a company like
Google who embraces OSS more genuinely.

~~~
Locke1689
Eh, Google embraces OSS when it doesn't affect their bottom line.

Which is not to say that Microsoft embraces it. Even internally their policies
are almost downright hostile.

~~~
WalterGR
_Which is not to say that Microsoft embraces it. Even internally their
policies are almost downright hostile._

How so?

~~~
Locke1689
Sorry, can't say.

~~~
WalterGR
Okay, then. Since neither of us wants to violate our NDAs, I'll just say:
you're wrong.

~~~
Locke1689
I think it depends (like most everything at MS) on your team. Although
actually what I'm referring is to legal restrictions on software we can
actually use in production.

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bad_user
Pity, he doesn't sound so enthused about the future.

