What's This About a Ruby Backlash?

"Daniel's post led me to question, what is the motive for piling on to the heap of negativity started by Zed and perpetuated by Rick Hightower, Graeme Rocher and others?" --Obie http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/2008/01/whats-this-crap.html

"(Obie should know negative) Top ten reasons Java Sucks. I'm not really much into evangelizing Ruby and Rails much nowadays. You know, since we won, I have to admit that it became boring and besides the point. However, this FUDdy discussion on the Hibernate blog got me riled up and I'm in a playful mood tonight. Therefore, mostly for old time's sake, here is a list of the top 10 reasons that anything (and probably everything) related to Java sucks ass in comparison to Ruby and Rails." --Obie Fernandez http://www.jroller.com/obie/entry/top_10_reasons_why_java

 

Ruby is dead last in the LAMP world and enterprise space (indeed.com), and has not put a dent in Java. Java popularity has increased since RoR came out. Ruby's popularity shrunk last year according to the Tiobe report. Yet Ruby Won! Go team!

Recent comments on Obie blog sum it up better than I could:

"I don't think the backlash is against Ruby per se, but the endless and tedious hype that has been spread by zealous Ruby cultists for the last few years. These people have simply worn out their welcome at places like Javalobby, where for a long time their gratuitous Java-bashing was politely tolerated. Oh, and as an author of Ruby books, you are definitely not a disinterested observer. It's obviously in your interest that people believe that Ruby scales, or that there is significant demand for Ruby skills in the IT job market, despite the fact that both assertions are demonstrably false. And also, you're slamming of Daniel Spiewak in such a crude fashion shows that you're starting to get desperate about the whole thing." --Some Dude

Well said. Here is another:

"Taking Daniel's words out of context really makes YOU look like the liar here, Fernandez. The problem is not really with Ruby, which is a wonderful language for one-off, slow, little scripts. The problem lies with the childish Rails "community", which seems to consist largely of a bunch of script kiddies churning out nonscaling swill like the 10,000th MP3 catalog, and yelling loudly about how easy it all is. Guess it sells, books, eh Obie? But guess what: it sure as hell doesn't sell the rest of us, who are moving on to Django et al."

I don't think Obie is a liar nor do I think all those who use Ruby are "script kiddies". I think he is a true believer who really likes Rails and Ruby. I don't doubt his earnestness. I don't agree with his conclusions. Here is another comment on his blog post about the Ruby backlash.

Ad-hominem and rather dubious suggestions about "oppression" do not make for a good blog post. Sorry, but you just come off as being a Ruby fanatic here.

Seems like a PR problem. What is odd about this is that Daniel's blog seemed to indicate that I was a Java fanatic. Here is another comment:

"To those that would use the number of Rails-related listings on major job boards as evidence of opportunity limitations, I point out that due to extraordinary demand for Ruby talent in the marketplace, it is almost pointless to advertise Ruby job positions via conventional channels. The way to find Rails talent is via targeted Ruby job boards, word of mouth, and blogging. Counts on mainstream job boards are meaningless at best, misleading at worst." --Obie

So what you are saying is since there is no proof of Rails popularity just your saying so makes it so? Or maybe the Rails community is so small in the scheme of things and the market for Rails is so small they all get snatched up by the current Rails developers?--commenter

It does not matter what any report says to a true believer. It is more important how Obie feels the RoR market is doing that sounds a bit extreme. Now let's look at the negative things I said about Ruby on my blog ("negativity started by Zed and perpetuated by Rick Hightower"):

I can't say I will never program in JRuby or Ruby just that they are not high on my priority list.

Wow... scathing indictment of Ruby. Not! I just read a JRuby article tonight and learned about a few Ruby features that I did not know about that as Zed said were not covered well in the Ruby books. Here is what I said that was negative:

I am just a little sick of the "Ruby Won, Java sucks!" crowd, and the constant reports of Java's death (despite facts to the contrary). I could never see where Ruby fit. Python was older and more mature so if you were going to swing the dynamic language way... well why not Python? Java fit the enterprise application space quite well. Apparently based on indeed and tiobe report, a lot of folks agreed with me. ... Yet day after day on Jroller, there was the constant beat of Ruby pimple pimpers (Ruby rulez; Java sucks). It is not about being closed minded about only using Java. It is really about setting the record straight about Ruby and its relative importance in the grand scheme of things despite the hype.

I have nothing against Ruby per se-I just prefer Java, Groovy and Python.

Wow... That was so negative. I don't like watermelons, but I do like oranges. I don't expect people who love watermelons to jump all over my grill for liking oranges. Here is what I said on my "negative" blog entry:

I have actually learned to like Obie's blog. There I said it....

Rails had a positive influence on SW development as a whole even if you never used it....

Rails has some great ideas. I've said it many times and I believe it.

When I wrote another blog: What server-side Java web framework will be the next? Some people responded with an admiration for RoR. I left them in. I could have removed them. I didn't. http://www.jroller.com/RickHigh/entry/what_server_side_java_web

I am actually very open-minded; I just don't like Rails. I plan on buying Obie's book on Zed's recommendation just to see if there is something I missed wrt to Rails/Ruby.

There are quite a few people who I know and trust who really like Ruby and Rails. There are others I know that tried it and it just did not fit their application.

Oh and BTW, that blog entry about Ruby/Rails was not the first time I spoke about the hype vs. the reality. I have been doing that for over a year (perhaps longer). It was the first one that people actually read. :o)

I know a few people who do not like Ruby/Rails and/or had problems with it and said patently they would not blog about it because they feared the fanatical Ruby community.

Obie I get it. You like Ruby and Rails. Great. I have a different opinion. This is not FUD. This is a difference of opinion.

 Daniel seems to be equally annoyed with me:

"So on one hand, I’m glad to see the hype die.  It was frustrating having to deal with yet-another bigoted “Rails Rocks, Java Suxz” rant every time I opened my RSS.  On the flip side, the backlash is equally annoying."

Hey Daniel compare what I said to this http://www.jroller.com/obie/entry/top_10_reasons_why_java. Peace.

I thought Daniel's blog entry was pretty fair to Ruby, and was not overly negative at all. I don't see's Obie problem with Daniel's post (glass houses and rocks) compared to the stuff Obie writes, frankly, Daniel was magnanimous (in this post anyway).

BTW Daniel, read what I wrote and compare it to this gem that you wrote http://www.javalobby.org/java/forums/t101687.html, and I am by far the magnanimous one. You Java fanatic! (Kettle black, pot black).

Let's see what I said about Ruby http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=37121 (2nd most popular post on TSS ever and I do not bag Ruby). Wow! No Java fanboy stuff in there. To be fair, Daniel having conversed with you on Jroller and read a few of your posts here and there, it seems you are not a Java fanatic per se, you are fanatical with all of your opinions. :o) At least, Obie tends to stick mainly to Ruby true belief.

Let me reiterate:

The purpose of the blog entry was to vent at the constant pronouncements by the "Ruby Rulez, Java sucks!" crowd, and the Java is dead crowd. It was more of a long rant than a detailed language comparison.

Like many developers, I believe in programming language choice and such. In fact in 1998, I wrote a series on programming languages that ran in the JVM for the JDJ (being an early adopter of Jython, I wrote a book on Jython as well). I am all about choice and learning new languages to broaden your skill set. I have been paid to program in C, C++, Java, Python, Perl, Delphi, etc.

The Groovy support in most IDEs (except for apparently IDEA) is not so great. Why not invest in the syntax that people use? (Groovy being more similar to Java.) Groovy seems like more of a sure bet than JRuby does for the JVM.

I am not a true believer. I am willing to be convinced that what I am doing is wrong or less than optimal. I challenge my conceptions daily. I am more than willing to change my mind. Convince me.

Please read this: http://www.jroller.com/RickHigh/entry/top_ten_reasons_i_am

Zed didn't open the door for me Obie. You did.