

Ruby Programming Language (alternative Ruby home page) - telemachos
http://rubylang.info/

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kristofferR
I found this GitHub issue/comment really fascinating:

 _"Hi. I'm Jean-Denis Vauguet, one of the maintainers of ruby-lang.org
(working on the French flavour).

After discussing a little bit with other active VIT members, it seems I
stepped up to port ruby-lang.org to a git-based, static website generation
process too. I'm using Jekyll, extended with custom tasks for generating,
parsing, Sass compiling, multi-lang support… I'm also in contact with
postmodern, who started its own port a few days ago (idea: merging good ideas
and focus on one project). So there is kind of a "official" effort going on,
despite we did not published yet (hopefully soon).

_ _In the mean time, your port looks great :) But I do see it is not quite a
"port", but an overhaul, with a different organization (links to third-party
websites, for instance). I can't speak for the Ruby officials, for I'm not,
but I do see this may result in a duplicated effort, and a confusing "content-
hydra" (two websites with the same name, newcomers puzzled, duplicated
content, etc.). So what should we do about it?"_

<https://github.com/rubylang/rubylang.github.com/issues/4>

It would be interesting to see how a major site like ruby-lang.org being
managed and run through git would turn out.

~~~
cageface
I moved my own site to Jekyll recently. With modern javascript techniques a
"static" site can still be pretty interactive without any dependencies on
fragile software plumbing. It's also really fast.

~~~
glenngillen
I've been using NestaCMS for a year or two now, kinda feel it's the best of
both worlds. Low-tech enough that I can just write a markdown file in vim if
need be, but the flexibility to do something dynamic if the need arises.

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chrisledet
Hello. I started rubylang.info and I feel that I should say this. I had
contacted the team who maintains ruby-lang.org and it is what actually
inspired me to create this so called "fork". The way they're doing things
right now is discouraging and much of a hassle for anyone not in the "team" to
contribute the slickest bit of change. This new site solves this problem.

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YorickPeterse
While the official website has it's flaws it actually doesn't look too bad.
This design however uses the color red way too much and blocks such as the
news feed take up too much space. I also don't see how this would directly
benefit the Ruby community but that may be my personal opinion.

~~~
extension
The great thing about this new site is that you can fix it!

~~~
YorickPeterse
Except that I don't want to, nor do most other developers out there. Not
because they necessarily lack interest but because there's a pretty good
chance they're busy enough already.

~~~
chrisledet
You can say the same thing for any OSS project but then why is open source so
damn popular? If you don't want to contribute then that's your own decision.
No one is forcing you to do anything.

~~~
YorickPeterse
Because people contribute whenever they're interested in it, this is great in
many different ways. However, using an open source project as an excuse to not
do the work yourself (regardless of the reasons or the problems) is just
silly.

~~~
extension
Using open source as an excuse to do the part of the work that you are best
qualified for, and opening up the rest to respective experts, is a pretty good
idea.

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lylejohnson
The other day there was some discussion about how some information on the Ruby
home page is out of date or incomplete, so I guess this is a response to that.
Well, good, you can't have too many "home" pages for a programming language.
This should make things much less confusing for newcomers.

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sleight42
Concur. Fix the process around the existing web site. "Forking" should be a
last resort.

~~~
extension
A collaboration with the maintainers of the original site is likely to inherit
its problems. Creating a new site is much easier than trying to modify
people's behavior. The duplication of effort is not a significant issue for a
project of this scale.

A similar thing happened with Rubyforge -> Gemcutter. It was a pretty fast and
clean transition. This is really how the Ruby community rolls. The "official"
whatever is whoever is doing the best job of it at the moment.

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sleight42
You know what? I agree.

<anecdote>

Ruby is going the way of Java and for the same reasons. Rails originally made
easy things easy and hard things possible. Now, for novices, easy things are
harder. Java went the same route largely as a result of the debacle know as
J2EE.

Java suffered the problems that it did because there was the "one true way" of
J2EE until Spring eventually came along and made it (marginally) better.

Merb provided that for Rails. Now there's no more Merb.

</anecdote>

The point: we, the Ruby community, are suffering our own success. Popularity
leads to people leads to bureaucracy leads to mediocrity. See "JSF".

As a result, this "fork" makes sense to me. Unfortunately, it's just a drop in
the bucket. Ruby.next is coming and it's called Javascript (by way of Node)
and Clojure (by way of those Rubyists who are LISP obsessed and still use
Java).

~~~
judofyr
_The point: we, the Ruby community, are suffering our own success. Popularity
leads to people leads to bureaucracy leads to mediocrity. See "JSF"._

Isn't this (rubylang.info) a great example of _lack_ of bureaucracy? Someone
isn't satisfied with the current ruby-lang.org, so instead of trying to go
through lots of bureaucracy, they rather make something completely new?

~~~
chrisledet
The current bureaucracy is flawed. It is not community owned but government by
a "core maintainer" group where decisions are not publicize nor is there a
roadmap anywhere.

I went through the necessary communication channels BEFORE I started this and
what I experienced from that is the result of rubylang.info.

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grimen
I see your vision, but first of all I really think that this should be done in
coorporation with the ruby-lang.org. Also, you need a designer; please don't
take it personally, but the design looks like 30 min in Photoshop. Sorry for
being harsh, but I love Ruby community and I would not stand a ugly site being
the entry-point. The ruby-lang.org site is actually really beautiful, it's
just the irrelevant information on it that is the problem.

~~~
stephth
_Also, you need a designer; please don't take it personally, but the design
looks like 30 min in Photoshop. Sorry for being harsh, but I love Ruby
community and I would not stand a ugly site being the entry-point. The ruby-
lang.org site is actually really beautiful, it's just the irrelevant
information on it that is the problem._

Wow. There are so many wrong things about your comment I don't know where to
start. You're borderline insulting with a criticism that has zero information
apart from the fact that you hate it, and then you act like you had to do it
to save the Ruby community. And then, icing on the cake, you announce that the
official Ruby site is "is actually really beautiful" like an absolute truth.

Be constructive. If you can't, have some respect for other people's effort and
keep your hate to yourself.

~~~
grimen
That was not hate, that was opinion. Maybe it depends on your own mental state
(bad day) when you read that, read it again some other day. If you get the
same feeling, then I would say we bring our opinions in different ways. Don't
pain me as a wanna be saviour please, I've been doing Ruby since 2005 - I got
right to tell what I believe in for Ruby community.

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javan
The example Ruby code jammed into a narrow column like that doesn't do much do
demonstrate how beautiful Ruby code can be.

~~~
mtogo
Agreed. One of the things i liked about ruby-lang.org was the prominent
display of demo code.

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compay
I think root of the problem is, do we want a site that reflects in-the-
trenches Ruby developers' reality, or a site that reflects the Ruby core
team's vision?

It seems that there's room in the world for both, they are different needs and
perhaps trying to satisfy them with one website is a mistake.

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sleight42
Learn Ruby the Hard Way was not written by Zed. It's Zed-supported. Different
author though.

~~~
jkmcf
Off topic, but Umberto Eco's novels in English are still written by Umberto
Eco, regardless of the translator.

~~~
sleight42
For a book about "MOAR CODEZ!" you're giving Rob Sobers short shrift.

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jkmcf
Rob seems to have done a great job translating the python-ness to ruby-ness,
but Zed did the hard work -- he created the approach and wording for Python.

I haven't tried to compare them, but my interpretation of Zed's comments is
that most of the text is still Zed's.

Edit: You might be short shrifting Eco's translator. Reading his stuff is hard
enough, translating must be a royal PITA. </tongue-in-cheek>

~~~
sleight42
Eco's work is tough. So, yes, maybe I'm undervaluing the credit of
"translator".

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pwim
From the official site:

 _Content available in English, French, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Spanish,
Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Bahasa Indonesia, German,
Italian, Czech, Bulgarian and Turkish._

Internationalization is one key thing the alternative version is missing.

~~~
chrisledet
The project was started less than 48 hours ago. Isn't quite finished yet. :)

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killerswan
Call this "Ruby Links" and make it less a temporary clone, more a permanent
and vital resource.

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libria
Easy on the glow/gradients, buddy.

