cam macrae - blog

Friday night I very quickly read Bruce Tate's From Java To Ruby. By quickly, I mean to say I read it sitting in Borders because I sure wasn't going to part with the $55 (AUD) / $45 (USD) price Borders AU had whacked on a $29 (USD) book - the PDF version is only $20 (USD) so I'll snaffle that for reference.

As a reformed Java programmer (and reformed C programmer one paradigm before) in a kinda/sorta evangelizer role, I really appreciate that someone - anyone - would take the time to write this book.

In clear, management friendly language (sans cringe and thus palatable to developers), Tate lays out the case for Ruby by bringing both strengths and weaknesses into context. It runs something like this:

* Java (and interchangeably .NET) are inherently complex...

* Rarely do your problems require such complexity...

* There is another way that's cheaper, faster and easier...

* For everything else you've still got Java.

Ok, so the argument is a touch more nuanced than that, but if you want it word perfect go buy the book ;)

I think it's a great thing for proponents of pragmatic development to rally behind Ruby: A single target strategy is almost certainly the most effective way of building upper management awareness. However, if you look past the fog of buzz surrounding Ruby via Rails there is a considerably less hyped, but equally (sometimes more) desirable parallel: Python (and Django). It would be a tragedy for this point to be lost given the kinds of real world success stories and the very active Python community. To his credit, Tate also gives props to Python and LAMP in the book. There should be more of it!

From Java To Ruby: Things Every Manager Should Know, has a great deal to offer Python developers, especially those trying to get Django under management's nose. It conveys the pros and cons of transitioning from Java in a way that most developers could never hope to do themselves.

Pass a hat around and buy your boss a copy!