

What I wish a Ruby programmer had told me one year ago.. - Sirupsen
http://blog.sirupsen.dk/me/what-i-wish-a-ruby-programmer-had-told-me-one-year-ago/

======
njharman
> After a few days playing around with Python, I felt okay with it. I didn’t
> love Python,

Probably should try longer than a few days, but this is the best/only metric
for personal programming language (business/group programming may impose other
metrics).

If you don't love the language you're programming with, you should find
another.

~~~
nearestneighbor
> If you don't love the language you're programming with, you should find
> another.

It's the other way around. If you love a language, you are probably unaware of
its flaws or of other languages (It's like the stupidity-confidence
correlation). This is one of the reasons fanboys make me want to puke.

~~~
silentbicycle
Well, if you love a language enough, you'll eventually be dragged through all
of its weak areas and get real perspective.

The important thing is just to keep quiet during the "best thing EVER!!!"
phase. The reason fanboys are so annoying is the combination of enthusiasm and
relatively shallow knowledge.

~~~
nearestneighbor
> Well, if you love a language enough, you'll eventually be dragged through
> all of its weak areas and get real perspective.

You'll be dragged, but you won't get any perspective if you know only that
language.

~~~
silentbicycle
Oh, absolutely, but switching languages every weekend isn't going to get you
deep perspective either. It's probably best to focus on just a couple
languages, but languages that are sufficiently different from each other that
they expose you a wide variety of techniques.

------
jorgecastillo
It's kind of disappointing to see the hate some HN readers express toward non
mainstream Linux distros like Arch. As some readers have pointed out this sort
of Linux distros are not for everyone. We can use whatever OS we like for
whatever reasons we choose and there is no reason to get angry or offensive
about it.

P.S. I use OpenBSD.

------
brazzy
"Error establishing a database connection"? That's deep wisdom indeed...

~~~
augustl
Yes, Ruby doesn't scale.

~~~
Sirupsen
The blog is powered by Wordpress. :D

------
augustl
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://blog.sirupsen.dk/me/what-
i-wish-a-ruby-programmer-had-told-me-one-year-ago/&hl=en&strip=1)

The post in Google's cache, while the site is down.

------
trebor
Breaking out of a programming paradigm is difficult, but one of the most
liberating things that you can do. Now when you go back to working on PHP
projects you can approach it with different methods. The roughest time I had
breaking my paradigm was when I learned a little Lisp...

~~~
dagheti
If found working in a ML language like Haskell or F# puts a really tight
straight-jacket on code style, and is wonderful at forcing you to adopt a new
paradigm.

When you go back to coding in other languages, you approach the same problems
in different ways because you were forced to solve them in a strongly typed
functional manner.

~~~
silentbicycle
Yeah, and after you're comfortable with ML or Haskell, try Prolog.
Unification+backtracking is like pattern matching cranked to 12. As a bonus, a
lot of the corners of Erlang will suddenly make more sense, and several Prolog
implementations come with good libraries for constraint programming.

Also, not to nitpick, but Haskell isn't an ML dialect, and while my experience
is with OCaml (not SML or F#), OCaml doesn't _force_ you to do anything in a
purely functional manner the way Haskell does - it just makes it an option. (I
think this is a good thing, but I guess it's a downside when you're trying to
force yourself to try new stuff.)

------
nearestneighbor
> And then I recommend something like Arch Linux whenever you feel like you
> are ready for something more advanced!

What's so great about Arch? Why should I waste my time getting the basic
functionality working, like X or audio?

~~~
abentspoon
Less magic. Ubuntu is a complex system, and hard for a beginner to learn and
customize. However, there's no need to switch while you're happy with Ubuntu.

~~~
koenigdavidmj
Agree. I'm a Slackware user because too many times has Ubuntu booted and
showed me a dialog box saying "I updated your system and broke everything;
have fun fixing it".

If I wanted something that constantly breaks things and then try to get off by
looking cute, I'd get a puppy.

EDIT: s/Slackware/& user/

------
nearestneighbor
tl;dr: PHP noob discovers Ruby and OOP. Thinks he's now so awesome that people
care about his opinion about unrelated topics like Linux distros.

------
noxn
I bet if this post was about python and not ruby (and maybe leave the Arch
Linux part, as people didn't seem to like that), there wouldn't be anyone
calling him a fanboi.

~~~
Macha
Nah, attacks happen. It is the internet after all. Post a highly subjective
post in favour of anything, and you'll find someone to disagree loudly with
you.

~~~
noxn
Probably. I still have the feeling that it wouldn't get this much bad comments
in a python entry.

------
owyn
i think that's a new record. flame war from the first post.

------
Sirupsen
Very sorry about the downtime, wasn't expecting such a rape.

~~~
Sirupsen
Aaand.. it's up!

------
butterfi
Grammer cop says no.

Honestly, your choice of words is distracting. Your server got "raped"? PHP is
"evil?"

What, no Nazis?

I'm not sure why this post is getting votes...

~~~
nonrecursive
Was "grammar" intentionally misspelled?

~~~
Semiapies
It's a rule - you have to typo when criticizing someone's grammar.

~~~
icey
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry%27s_law>

------
hvs
This is what I've come to expect from articles about Ruby:

    
    
      And of course point them towards Linux:
    
      “Windows is not the best development platform in the 
      world for Ruby. I recommend you to try out Linux. Start
      with a simple distribution, like Ubuntu. And then I
      recommend something like Arch Linux whenever you feel 
      like you are ready for something more advanced!”
    

Really? In an article about Ruby you feel the need to point people at your
personal pet OS? Pointless.

~~~
Mc_Big_G
It's not pointless at all. Trying to develop in Ruby or Rails on Windows in a
huge pain in the ass. I know, I did it for a year or so. He could have
recommended OS X, but the price is a barrier to entry.

~~~
rubinelli
I think the biggest problem is the number of gems with native libraries. I
switched to JRuby, and felt a lot less pain. Now if only it had a faster
startup...

~~~
kunley
Btw you can try nailgun to start JRuby's JVM once. See your
$jruby/tool/nailgun/

~~~
rubinelli
I looked into it and it's definitely interesting. It's just a pity NetBeans
doesn't use it (and given the current situation, probably never will). Anyway,
thanks for the tip.

