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Rubyx OS - A Testament To The Power Of Ruby
Andrew Walrond writes "Rubyx the OS is created from source by rubyx the ruby script. Got it? The same small ruby script handles all subsequent package management, customised parallel and distributed user-mode package builds, and can create a live CD. For good measure, Rubyx (the os) sports an all new init and rationalised service management system written in ....can you guess?..."
If Linux can become more flexible in the areas of package management and system configuration... For example, making it easy to run multiple versions of, say, gcc on the same system and switch between them at will; automatically generating configuration files based on system-wide settings. Seamlessly integrating with the latest source or binary packages of my favorite software ... and letting all these features be available from the bash shell, while making it easy for GUI wrappers to be built for those shell apps ... these are the things that can make Linux a more ideal platform! At the end of the day, I really don't care what language the configuration scripts are written in!
If you consider sigils an abomination upon the land, as I do (despite working professionally in Perl), then you'll want Python. If you consider them Larry Wall's gift to syntax, then you'll want Ruby.
In Ruby, Sigils indicate scope, not type! Whole different thing.
It doesn't obfuscate the code. Makes it easier to read actually.
Why devote so much energy into implementing a mediocre system using ruby, of all languages, when you could spend time improving an existing system?
How do you know it's mediocre? Have you tried it?
Do you even understand what it does?
Total waste of time...99.99% of the code out there is written in C -based languages (java, php, C++) for a reason...
You could be the one that's totally wasting your time. One should choose the right language for the job at hand.
I recently inherited a project which took six months to develop in C++. It weighed in at ~4800 lines of C++ code. Since we needed to significantly expand the scope of the project and also add a GUI _and_ since execution speed wasn't an issue, but development time _was_ an issue I decided to rewrite the code in Ruby. It took a week and came to ~1200 lines of Ruby. The resulting Ruby code is much more flexible and easier to modify and add to than the previous C++ codebase (good riddance to it). I'll gain back that week invested to do the conversion several times over as the project progresses and as the requirements (inevitably) change... and I'll keep my sanity.
Choose the right tool for the job. If speed of execution is an issue then by all means use C/C++ (I do). However, if you need to develop code quickly then use an agile (aka scripting) language - I prefer Ruby for that role.
(Anyone caring to translate this character?
I rather dislike Ruby.
Oh, it's got consistent semantics and a decent object model (a proto model would have been better) and every CS professor's favorite item: true closures. But Ruby has one nasty feature which trumps 'em all. It was designed by an ex-Perl guy, and as such Ruby has approximately five billion different ways of writing the same syntax. As long as it can't be "misinterpreted", you can delete or change all sorts of stuff.
This is language design which borders on the grotesque. Great. So I can write any way I want. That means that every OTHER programmer can too, including everyone I'm collaborating with. So to understand their code, I have to know not only My Favorite Syntax but I have to know all *their* favorite syntaxes as well. Repeat after me: knowing the syntax of a language should demand as few neurons in your brain as possible. Ruby violates this on a grand scale.