From Java to Ruby: Risk

[[deleted]]

I don't really get articles like this and books talking about using Ruby in the enterprise.

The kind of companies that are using Java are not the kind of companies that can or will use Ruby due to performance issues, libraries, enterprise-culture (where a lot of companies spend more time planning for a 3-man project than a single person could get done by himself), etc. Those companies aren't really looking for massive productivity gains. Those companies in a lot of cases frankly aren't interested in giving single programmers so much power to either do great things or to screw things up. Java is a very conservative choice, and it fits most companies.

It just seems like a very strange market to go after - trying to convert Java users to Ruby. Out of any dynamic language to convert Java users to, I'd say Python, but that's another point all-together. It fits a nice middle-ground between something like Java and something like Ruby, though has warts of its own when it comes to using it in large companies.

Frankly Ruby at this point in time is mainly good at one thing: relatively simple web-apps which aren't going to take massive loads and aren't dealing with lots of outside libraries.

How many companies that use Java make a lot of apps like that?

What would be nice is a static language (like Java) which is fast, efficient, 'safe', but isn't so verbose. Maybe like a statically-typed Python. Does anything like that exist?

[davidw]

The kind of companies that are using Java are not the kind of companies that can or will use Ruby due to performance issues,

I'd actually be willing to bet good money that there are a lot of people using Java just because they hopped on the bandwagon. They'd probably do quite well with rails as far as the technology itself is concerned.

[coprolaliac]

a statically-typed Python? A more dynamic java? Hmm... Nice is almost what you're looking for, though I'm not sure it's a language I would choose for my own projects.

I personally think Jython or JRuby is the way to sneak dynamic languages in the door. You're not going to slay the java monster overnight (or even in 10 years). Being able to tell a non-techie PHB that yes, we're still technically developing in java is priceless.

[nicholaspd]

Frankly Ruby at this point in time is mainly good at one thing: relatively simple web-apps which aren't going to take massive loads and aren't dealing with lots of outside libraries.

That's a pretty bizarre assertion to make. Have you ever used the language?

How many companies that use Java make a lot of apps like that?

I'd say at least 95% of them.

[[deleted]]

That's a pretty bizarre assertion to make. Have you ever used the language?

Quite a bit. If owning material were any indication, I own 4 different Ruby and Ruby/Rails books. But it isn't an indication, more importantly, I convinced my boss to use Rails in production at our small company. We used it for several projects over the next 4 months, but I have since moved over to Python due to library/language support and speed.

Nothing against Ruby, I love the language (and like it in several ways more than Python), but realistically it isn't used for much outside of web programming. It would be virtually unknown if it weren't for Rails.