Re: [gentoo-user] Ruby - 3 versions - seriously????

[R0b0t1 <r030t1@gmail.com>]

Sorry, I missed your reply.

On Mon, Sep 4, 2017 at 3:32 PM, Marvin Gülker <m-guelker@phoenixmail.de> wrote:
> Am 04. September 2017 um 12:07 Uhr -0500 schrieb R0b0t1 <r030t1@gmail.com>:
>> Even if they can not present an argument like I have,
>> they will probably only notice it if it misbehaves in some way. If it
>> misbehaves more than other software on their system, who is to say it
>> isn't a poorly designed language and/or ecosystem?
>
> I think that on a technical mailinglist you should convey your point
> using technical arguments, not rhethorical ones.

The technical reasoning in the argument I presented is "it doesn't
work when I try to use it." It is not sophistry.

> The reasoning is
> errorneous. If your goal is not ultimate API stability, then Ruby's
> design approach that focuses more on progress than on ultimate API
> stability is not poor, but different. You can agree or disagree with the
> goal, but you can't question the measures taken to implement it by first
> stipulating a goal different from the one the measure was intended to
> implement. Take a look at Ruby's versioning policy[1]; ultimate API
> backward compatibility is not a design goal in minor versions of the
> language. Ruby is simply not the right tool for the job if you want to
> create for example an archive software that must run 20 years without
> touching it.
>

The problem is there's a zeroth goal of every project: to be useful.
If the software produced is hard to use or not usable at all, then all
of the work spent on it is for naught.

Suggesting that it is impossible to progress a language while
maintaining language stability is fallacious reasoning. You can choose
to do both, e.g. by structuring releases so that breaking changes are
lumped together, as in Python. It is also the case that not all
changes are good changes, though experimentation is key to success.

> Even though, the problem is not as dramatic as you seem to imply. I
> stand by my point that using private C interfaces is the programmer's
> fault and there is nothing to be standardised here. Real breaking
> changes of documented behaviour like the Bignum/Fixnum one are rare, and
> the effects are moderate. Most of the software written in Ruby will not
> have a problem with running on newer versions.
>

The problem is dramatic enough if there's people complaining about it.
Granted, most distributions seem to take care of such issues for their
users, so the only people complaining seem to be Gentooers.

Other people who do not like the situation simply avoid Ruby.

Cheers,
     R0b0t1.