Oct 31 2005
Learning Ruby
In keeping with the Pragmatic rule of “learn a new programming language once a year,” I’ve spent a fair amount of time learning Ruby over the past two weeks or so. I’m reading Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers\’ Guide and Agile Web Development with Rails. Both are very well written books, and I’m enjoying Ruby thus far.
Ben’s recent post on “the wackiness of Ruby” made me want to add something to what he’s saying: I am really tired of inter-language bickering. It makes it really difficult to learn new things, when the vast majority of bright open source-y people choose such hard-core zealotry as their world outlook. That said, I’m a huge hypocrite for bringing this up, as I start my share of sentences saying “Python does this much better…” However, I’m trying to turn over a new leaf.
I’ve made a conscience decision while reading the Ruby stuff to let it be what it is, and not let my opinions slow me down. It’s tough. It’s taken a fair amount of self-discipline to not stop reading and exclaim something or other about why something is good or bad. After the first few days though, it got easier.
Open source projects and languages need advocates. Potential converts are sometimes best converted through somewhat disdainful appraisals of their current choices. I’m tired of it. Being open to new things is a much more rewarding experience. I’m glad that Ben, a fierce advocate of a particular stack of tools, takes the time to learn something new. I’m glad that he calls out what he sees as inconsistencies, while not necessarily passing judgement on the project. I think it can be a very difficult thing to do, especially in the pretty zealot-y user group community. It’s something that we should all at least try, I think we’ll all find it’s a better way to view your world.
