-----Original Message-----
From:
ironruby-core-boun...@rubyforge.org
[mailto:
ironruby-core-boun...@rubyforge.org]
On Behalf Of Nathan Stults
Sent: Wednesday, November 04, 2009 8:44 PM
To:
ironruby-core@rubyforge.org
Subject: Re: [Ironruby-core] How do you convince .Net developers to
useIronRuby?
But isn't the C-Ruby or J-Ruby crowd deploying primarily on Windows a
pretty small group, all in all? Aren't most Ruby dev's working on Linux?
After all, Ruby is considerably faster on Linux. I'm having a hard time
imagining what the value proposition is for this demographic, who
shouldn't really need to convert, but simply be willing to consider
IronRuby as an alternative deployment option for Windows. Maybe I'm
just being pessimistic, but I see convincing established Ruby
developers to leave their stable, mature interpreters and libraries for
0.x IronRuby to gain access to .NET, and at the same time wave goodbye
to Ruby 1.9, somewhat steeper of a climb than peddling dynamic
languages, Ruby and IronRuby, to the existing .NET community. I do
agree that you have to go in at the
ALT.NET back door rather
than the front door as the standard enterprise .NET developer is likely
to stare blankly at you while you stammer in apparent gibberish at him,
but converting Rubyists, this early in the ball game? I say good luck
to that :) My guess is the bar of maturity and stability is even higher
for existing Ruby programmers than
it is for fresh meat. But that's just my half cocked opinion. :)
-----Original Message-----
From:
ironruby-core-boun...@rubyforge.org
[mailto:
ironruby-core-boun...@rubyforge.org]
On Behalf Of C. K. Ponnappa
Sent: Wednesday, November 04, 2009 8:28 PM
To:
ironruby-core@rubyforge.org
Subject: Re: [Ironruby-core] How do you convince .Net developers to
useIronRuby?
Hey Shay,
> how do you suggest to present IronRuby to .Net developers
The deal is that you're not convincing a Chevy SUV driver to switch to a
Ford SUV. You're asking him to switch to a Lamborghini sports car. The
ride quality is different, the engine is fundamentally different, the
handling is different and though the risks to passersby are roughly the
same (they get run over if the driver is careless), the risks to the
driver are different (not much can happen to you in an SUV because, so
to speak, your ass is covered).
What I'm trying to get at with this weak (but still amusing, I hope)
analogy is that often with Ruby versus the mainstream (C#/Java), the
fact that it's IronRuby or JRuby matters little; it's the fundamentally
different approaches you need to take to ensure delivery that is the
bigger issue. This includes technical issues like the unavailability of
Intellisense (look at the bright side - the Java devs ask for
refactoring support when you try to pitch JRuby to them which is a lot
harder), software engineering issues (reliability, codebase entropy) and
political issues (the last is a huge factor in the mainstream). My
perspective - don't bother about it, at least right now. You have an
audience that has already accepted and dealt with these issues;
basically, convert the existing C-Ruby community first. Converting all
the Ferrari owners to Lamborghini is an easier proposition, and
generates enough publicity that the more adventurous among the
mainstream will start experimenting of their own accord.
As others on this thread have pointed out, most .Net shops are extremely
conservative and most developers have next to no exposure to what the
Ruby community would consider standard engineering best practices like
TDD and CI. I'd say that the primary audience that you need to convert
is the existing Ruby community by convincing them that IronRuby is a
viable production platform. I'd say once the Ruby community accepts and
promotes IronRuby just as they already have JRuby, then you can worry
about bringing the luddites on board.
At the risk of upsetting a lot of people, I think much of the mainstream
.Net world is blinkered and has a very narrow perspective. For example,
I have friends (and acquaintances) who are Microsoft devs who spend all
their time writing C#, but who have never even _heard_ of Nant, NUnit
and NHibernate. They have never heard of ReSharper and think
VisualStudio is a cutting edge (*cough*) IDE. The Alt .Net guys are
changing this, but these things take time.
Focus on converting the Ruby community and the edgier folks in the
mainstream (who tend to have their ears to the ground anyways) will
follow.
Best,
Sidu.
http://blog.sidu.in
http://twitter.com/ponnappa
Shay Friedman wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> In the last month I had 3 sessions about IronRuby, all of them in
> front of .Net audience. I really believe in the IronRuby but I
find it
> very very hard to pass that to existing .Net developers.
> I try to show the benefits of using IR - getting things done faster
> (like POCs, internal tools), using REPL, using IR abilities from
C#,
> IR and Silverlight (like Gestalt), unit testing, RoR...
> Most of the .Net devs are very conservative and are not willing to
get
> out of their familiar development environment even when they see
the
> clear benefits of the new technology.
> They feel that using IronRuby will take everything they love from
them
> - Visual Studio, Ctrl+F5, the sacred intellisense, etc.
>
> That's about what happens during a session:
> - No Visual Studio integration: 50% of the audience are willing to
leave.
> - No compilation: more 25% have just lost interest.
> - Intensive command line work: more 15% are shutting down.
>
> That leaves about 10 perecent of the audience that just think of
using
> IronRuby, most of them decide not to eventually.
>
> My question is - how do you suggest to present IronRuby to .Net
> developers?
> and to the team members - does Microsoft expect that existing .Net
> devs will start using IronRuby?
>
> Thanks!
> Shay.
>
> --
> --------------------------------------------------
> Shay Friedman
> Author of IronRuby Unleashed
>
http://www.IronShay.com
> Follow me:
http://twitter.com/ironshay
>
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