
Zed Shaw responds to DHH's Ruby Myths - raju
http://www.zedshaw.com/blog/2008-11-13.html
======
rcoder
"Mom, DHH called me a stupid-head!"

"Did not!"

"Did so!"

...

Etc., etc.

Honestly, neither of these guys need us feeding their egos. They've
contributed some decent infrastructure for web hacking, but if they want to
have a he-said/she-said argument, that's their business. I personally don't
want to waste any more time on their little ego-fest.

Let's turn this into a thread about Passenger, instead, since both of them
seem to be blessing it as the next great thing for Rails deployment.
Personally, I've been nervous about using it in production, mainly because I
don't yet trust that it isn't going to interact poorly with my rewrite rules
and authN/Z setup. Apache configurations can feel a bit like voodoo even when
modules aren't stomping all over each other, and the interaction of Passenger
with mod_rewrite, in particular, seems like it could cause breakage.

That being said, once you get the thing packaged and installed (which wasn't
as easy under Debian as I'd like), it does save a lot of resources compared to
a Mongrel-based deployment. I've seen a drastic reduction in RAM usage, as
well as a major decrease in the number of idle database connections lying
around in inactive Mongrel backends.

~~~
jrockway
_Personally, I've been nervous about using it in production, mainly because I
don't yet trust that it isn't going to interact poorly with my rewrite rules
and authN/Z setup. Apache configurations can feel a bit like voodoo even when
modules aren't stomping all over each other, and the interaction of Passenger
with mod_rewrite, in particular, seems like it could cause breakage._

I hear it's possible to install it on a spare box and see if it works with
your rewrite rules or not. Let's call it "testing".

~~~
Harkins
You've got a good suggestion, but why the snark? Did he need to be put down?

~~~
jrockway
To be fair, his comment was at -2 when I replied. I assumed he was trolling.

~~~
swombat
To be slightly unfair, your strength of character is defined not by your
behaviour to those who can defend themselves, but to those who look like they
deserve to be put down...

I'm not attacking you, mind you, just pointing out that it's a better general
principle to treat others based on what you believe is civil and acceptable
rather than based on whether other people think this particular person
deserves it.

------
tptacek
I did not read DHH's post and think he was suggesting Mongrel was leaking. I
see that DHH screwed up and said Mongrel (which they were using in production,
just not on Basecamp) when he should have said FCGI. But Zed has taken an
entire DHH post, zoomed in on one irrelevant error, and attempted to twist the
entire discussion around it.

Let's settle it now:

* Mongrel wasn't leaking.

* DHH clearly appears to have misspoken.

* But DHH also clearly said the leaks were in his application code.

The rest of this post is just more-of-the-same drama from Zed.

This time, instead of bizarro rants about Ruby security, or the play-by-play
of the crank calls he gets, we get to hear about how Mongrel destroyed his
career and how Rails will destroy the Passenger team. I can't see how this
stuff has any relevance to me, as a professional developer, at all. If you
can't make time to contribute to open source projects without screwing up your
career, don't do it.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
Zed may very well be paranoid, hyper-aggressive and caustic. However, you can
be paranoid and on to something. The subtle forms of aggression that Zed
accuses the Rails core of perpetuating are difficult to provide concrete
examples for, and it seems as though he has done just in this case.. we will
see how it plays out. It impacts me as a developer because this potentially
diminishes DHH's credibility in my eyes, and as the Rails BDFL, this has the
potential to impact how I approach the platform I use to make a living.

~~~
jrockway
_It impacts me as a developer because this potentially diminishes DHH's
credibility in my eyes, and as the Rails BDFL, this has the potential to
impact how I approach the platform I use to make a living._

Well, all the code is available, right? You should base your decisions on the
design and implementation of Rails, not on one of the author's blog. This is a
really scary pattern emerging that I've noticed. It seems like people want to
base their infrastructure decisions on things that don't matter. "Well, I
would use $foo, but the website doesn't look very nice." "$foo seems nice, but
the main author can be mean." If this is how you make IT decisions, I pity
you.

(A while back, someone posted to my blog a comment that read, "Because you
were so mean on CPAN Ratings, I've suggested to my clients that they use PHP
instead of Catalyst." That doesn't seem like a very sound way of evaluating
infrastructure decisions, especially since I am not the author of Catalyst. If
they want to make more work for themselves because they don't like me, all I
can do is point and laugh. Clearly I'm mentally ill, though.)

~~~
akkartik
_"..all the code is available, right? You should base your decisions on the
design and implementation of Rails, not on one of the author's blog."_

I can stare at the code all I want and still be no closer to knowing how rails
performs under load, or how much memory it leaks. That isn't just about the
code, it's about _behavioral interactions_ with the OS, level of traffic,
other layers in the stack. To address those issues I could run a million
performance evaluation experiments, or I could try to gauge how the community
is doing, who's using it that is kinda in the same situation as me, and what
issue's they're dealing with. And I refuse to believe you don't do the same.

He's not talking about what words DHH uses in a blog. He's talking about DHH's
credibility in saying rails was production-ready. That is relevant to platform
choices.

------
jrockway
I've noticed a pattern emerging in the Ruby community. Everyone thinks
everyone else "needs help". Zed "needs help". Zed's friend "might need help".

The reason I think this is interesting, though, is because this behavior
apparently rubs off on Rails users. I know someone who switched from Perl to
Ruby (on Rails) a while back. He came back to the Perl community by writing
his own super-great web framework. When anyone gives it any technical
criticism, he immediately replies with something like "I had a friend like
you. I hope you get help and get better." _blood pressure rising_

In conclusion, everyone that uses Rails is mentally ill :)

~~~
zby
Now, that was a cheap shot.

~~~
jamesbritt
Clearly, jrockway needs help.

~~~
alecco
And somehow he gets more than 9 votes up (because there must have been
negative votes.)

~~~
jrockway
I'm pretty sure that is a joke based on the story I relate in the comment.

But yes, I definitely need help!

~~~
alecco
My head hurts from laughing so much...

~~~
alecco

                                                               nooot.

------
rbanffy
You know what I love the most about Django?

It's as easy to use as Rails, plus has no such toxic people hanging around it.

~~~
kschrader
I was a Rails user for 3 years and I looked at Django seriously before
settling on Merb for my current project. I wouldn't say that it's as easy to
use or as powerful as Rails, but either way it seems like we should be moving
beyond silly arguments like this by now and have started building the next
generation of frameworks that take the good pieces from all of the current
generation and build upon them.

------
tlrobinson
I get the feeling that Zed is insecure about something.

 _"Normally I wouldn’t give a shit. Ruby on Rails is so far from my world
right now that I don’t even really care. I play guitar and write with maybe
some coding to pay the bills and that’s about it."_

Man, Zed's too cool for Rails. He plays guitar. He doesn't care what those
Rails people think. But let him post this one long rant to "clear something
up"...

------
fauigerzigerk
Aaah we all love a good soap opera :-) But seriously, apart from that Zed/DHH
warfare, I do wonder what Zed's experience means for the open source business
model. To be honest, I don't believe that Zed is the asshole his tone
sometimes suggests and that makes me wonder why he didn't get good jobs as the
creator of Mongrel. That's much more interesting than DHH's silly lie.

And Zed is by no means alone. I seem to remember that Guido Van Rossum wasn't
paid for his work on Python for many many years, until 2005 actually when he
was hired by google. (Of course I don't know whether he actually tried to get
paid for python work) During all those years, python was one of the most
popular programming languages.

In the commercial space, someone who makes something as popular as Mongrel,
let alone Python, does get paid more than enough for one person. Something's
very wrong with this business model.

------
aaronblohowiak
Wow! Zed's story is consistent and potentially damning. I look forward to
DHH's reply.

~~~
tptacek
Be more specific about why Zed's post is "damning".

~~~
aaronblohowiak
He accuses DHH of lying, and refers to an earlier (AFAIK uncontested)
recording of the conversation to demonstrate his point.

Edit: I agree 100% with jm4's elaboration down below.

~~~
tptacek
You're using the word "lying" where "mistaken" would do just as well. To
import the Wikipedia rule: (A)ssume (G)ood (F)aith.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
That's a good point. Which is why I said that Zed accuses him of lying, and
why I said that it is potentially damning, and refrained from making a
judgment myself.. and why I look forward to the rebuttal.

Edit: please see <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=365020>

------
vaksel
Anything you ever type or say on the web, will come to bite you in the ass
eventually.

------
kuniklo
I wonder if it's occurred to Zed that his attitude might have had something to
do with his difficulty finding a job.

------
raju
The original DHH post and HN discussion here -
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=362979>

------
markessien
...and that's why I picked Django over Ruby On Rails.

~~~
mattmcknight
Zed wouldn't let you join his band?

------
petercooper
_That’s why they constantly pick on little guys like Giles, Obie, and myself_

Who's picking on Obie Fernandez?

------
dmh2000
"To have everyone in your world using your software, but not offering you any
jobs greater than a system administrator position is tough."

this kind of refutes the idea that you can make a good living by writing an
open source package and selling support for it.

~~~
wmf
You can make money... if your software _requires_
support/consulting/customization to make it work. If your software "just
works", not so much.

