I think you are spot on Andrew. Although not popular to say in a forum like this, the JVM world is a bit self-centered and as evident by people following several camps, cross-pollination towards the JVM world has traditionally been scary limited. This has gotten a little better since the demise of Java (or rather, the shift from Java-the- language to JVM-the-platform). A few years ago you'd hear genuine attacks on RoR. And in spite of it for all practical purposes, being a next gen Java, we still don't have a C# compiler on the JVM.
It also explains why Scala is storming ahead, in spite of its complexity being raised as a concern by an awful lot of people. You can kind of see this within The Posse too, with Dick and Carl talking about Scala's weird syntax and unfathomable semantics in podcasts from 1-2 years ago, and both appears to be Microsoft haters, part of the elite... and alas currently adamant proponents of Scala. Few would disagree that based on look and feel, Fantom has a much better chance of replacing the void Java fills today, than Scala does. So I think it's not so much about Scala's greatness as it is about it's unique ability to channel like-minded within the JVM space and letting them stand out. I could be wrong, but that is my interpretation. /Casper On Sep 13, 2:15 am, Andrew <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Charlie, > > Personally (and I may be wrong...) I think there is a bit of a > reluctance in the Java community to embrace anything that also has an > existence outside of the JVM. I think there is a bit of an "Us (Java) > versus them (Ruby)" mentality, sadly. > > Also, there's a thread here from 2009 that touched on some of the > attitudes towards (J)Ruby - not sure if you've seen it. > > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg05371.html > > Andrew. > > Twitter: @am2605 > > On Sep 12, 4:19 pm, Charles Oliver Nutter <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > On Sep 9, 11:17 pm, Sean Griffin <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > My intention is not as sensational as my subject, but it's succinct so > > > I'll go with it. > > > FWIW, I'm surprised JRuby doesn't come up more. Perhaps people don't > > think about it because they feel Ruby is a "non-JVM" language more > > than a JVM language? > > > Ruby the language (not necessarily on JRuby) likely has more users > > worldwide than Groovy, Scala, and Clojure combined. By conservative > > estimates there are 500k-1M folks using Ruby. There are dozens of Ruby > > conferences around the world; I'll be attending 6 total this fall in > > the US, Japan, Brazil, and Uruguay, and more this spring in Europe and > > India. So it can't be that there's not a community to support it. > > > JRuby itself has defeated the idea that "Ruby is slow" already, and in > > the next release Ruby performance for many things will start to > > approach Java...even without requiring static types and other dynlang" > > impurities. For small benchmarks, JRuby master has exceeded the > > performance of all other dynamic languages on the JVM already. > > > JRuby integrates very well with Java, implementing interfaces (at > > runtime or ahead-of-time), extending classes, and of course calling > > any Java class as if it were just another Ruby class. The vast > > majority of integration cases work just fine, and most folks that > > choose JRuby do so explicitly because it integrates so well. > > > I suppose the big reason people may not consider Ruby is due to the > > differing syntax and some oddities in the language? I don't find the > > syntax that far off from Java...mostly it's replacing {} with > > do...end, using @foo for instance variables, and omitting visibility > > modifiers. So I think this is a red herring too. > > > I'd like to hear why nobody on this thread has even mentioned JRuby, > > especially if it's something we've failed to do in the implementation > > that keeps people away. > > > - Charlie -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
