Re: Ruby On Rails on the iSeries

[Jerome Hughes <jromeh@xxxxxxx>]

Joe--

(wrote this last night, but held off sending it... also not looking  
for a debate, but perhaps can present another view, my friend...)

firstly, a respectful correction, sure you're probably aware that...

dhh is behind rails, while ruby predates rails by over a decade,  
comes from Japan, etc.

and sure, he's a bit brash (the whippersnapper!) but often also  
getting to and past points many handcuff bound others of all  
different ages dance around

as my daughter used to say about being spoiled by being the only  
grandchild on both sides of her family for many years, "wouldn't you  
be?"

sort of ironic to see much the same reaction to (the idea not so much  
as the actuality of) rails as was made in the '90s by many tree  
huggers about Java

while some saw value right away, others did their level best to deny  
anything might ever change in the world enough to make Java  
appropriate for them - applets suck, and why would I want to write to  
a jvm when can hit the hardware directly with C++ - it's all about  
shrink wrap and always will be - imo, that's the way of the world,  
and Nathan hits the nail on the head when he says...

> One of the values in  discussions like these is that ideas are  
> shared that enable both application  developers and tool developers  
> to improve their products.  Looking into Rails,  and reflecting on  
> it has given me a lot of ideas about things that can be done  
> natively on the iSeries.

can't say ever did anything directly for corporate clients with OO  
languages and concepts studied in the '90s, beside applying great  
ideas learned studying them in (go ahead, shudder) AS/SET and good  
old RPG - adopted conventions _can_ negate the need for enforcement  
and move things forward

the value of any mission critical systems will always depend on depth  
of  understanding re: their underlying technology, and the quality  
present in the approach to implementing

if the technology simplifies, making it easier to understand what's  
been done while leaving room for handling real complexity, and makes  
rolling well-considered improvements back into the base reasonable,  
what's bad about that?

please keep watching rails for a while, as you clearly are, and see  
if it isn't evolving quickly in good directions - while dhh is at the  
controls, he's also watching closely for who is contributing and  
pulling their worthwhile additions into the core, some examples of  
adjustments experienced, for example, though not sure of sourcing...

test driven development, baked right in
migrations for handling the inevitably necessary schema evolution

all environments will have growing pains and security flaws, and it  
is how they are dealt with that matters most - those that hide 'em  
are the ones to watch out for, as Frank Hayes points out about what  
the VA guy should be saying on the back page of CW this week

the interesting reading on the security flaw was how it was handled  
and that plays out in a balance in the comments, not in so much in  
the original posts - much better response time than most "commercial"  
environments which can be compared - sure, they probably learned some  
things about how to handle the communications outward, but they also  
dug in, fixed it and got that out in four days, not next month, for  
free - the biggest complainers were anonymous people hiding behind  
"Commercial Rails Developer" and trying to impress with a number of  
servers (imagine that, sound familiar?) while the "clique" (your  
word, appropriate FUD?) does the work regardless

small is also the new big, and services will not always be only  
consulting, sometimes success comes from providing something simple  
in a new container that lots of folks thought they couldn't afford at  
their size

a well harnessed team of caring people in an environment where they  
can collaborate, contribute and benefit from peer review, hmm... how  
_does_ the cathedral stack up vs the bazaar, and why _did_ it make so  
much sense to give away the eclipse technology?

perhaps it was contributions and (mostly) continuous improvement

not saying rails is right for everything, but still find myself  
working after hours to understand what's there and apply it to get  
out from under some adopted personal workloads, and still pleased  
with how it's evolving in my limited time available for same

--Jerome

ps we'll see how lucid can be doing a short demo in september ;D

pps btw, Rails will be in both Leopard client and server releases,  
quite a 2nd birthday present


On Aug 16, 2006, at 7:28 PM, Joe Pluta wrote:

> > From: Nathan Andelin
> >
> >  People are  beginning to wonder if Rails will throw J2EE and .aspx
> > development on their  respective ears.  I agree that's pretty  
> > imaginative.
> > How could a few young  programmers, collaborating in an open-source
> > environment, challenge some of the  most powerful corporations on  
> > earth?
>
> Before actually beatifying the language you might want to take the  
> time to
> read about the security flaw of August 6th, and how the Ruby clique  
> handled
> it.
>
> This will also introduce you to the inventor of Ruby, the infamous  
> "DHH" (an
> example: http://tinyurl.com/nfgxd).  Or read his blog
> (http://www.loudthinking.com/).
>
>
> Then tell me you plan to run your mission critical systems on a  
> tool that
> depends on this guy.
>
> Joe
>
>
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