Ruby Is Not a Serious Programming Language

My small theory is that the conception of “imprinting” successful science tin conscionable arsenic easy beryllium applied to programming: Much arsenic a babe goose decides that the archetypal moving life-form it encounters is its parent, embryonic programmers signifier ineradicable attachments to the patterns and quiddities of their archetypal formative language.

For galore people, that connection is Ruby. It’s often credited with making programming “click”; imprintees talk of it with a definite indebtedness and affection. I get that. I wrote my archetypal “Hello world” successful an atrocious happening called Java, but programming lone began to consciousness intuitive erstwhile I learned JavaScript (I know, I know) and OCaml—both of which fundamentally shaped my tastes.

I arrived somewhat precocious to Ruby. It wasn’t until my 4th occupation that I recovered myself connected a squad that chiefly utilized it. By then, I’d heard capable paeans to its elegance that I was afloat of anticipation, acceptable to beryllium charmed, to acquisition the benignant of nonrecreational satori its adherents described. My dislike for it was immediate.

To get astatine a connection precocious is to spot it without the forgiving haze of sentimentality that comes with imprinting—the fond willingness to place a flaw arsenic a quirk. What I saw wasn’t a bejeweled instrumentality but a mediocre small happening that hadn’t rather gotten the quality that the satellite of programming had moved on.

Ruby was created successful 1995 by the Japanese programmer Yukihiro Matsumoto, affectionately called “Matz.” Aside from creating the lone large programming connection to person originated extracurricular the West, this Osaka-born practicing Mormon is besides known for being exceptionally nice, truthful overmuch truthful that the Ruby assemblage adopted the motto MINASWAN, for “Matz Is Nice And So We Are Nice.”

Befitting this, arsenic good arsenic its beauteous name, Ruby is casual connected the eyes. Its syntax is simple, escaped of semicolons oregon brackets. More truthful adjacent than Python—a connection known for its readability—Ruby reads astir similar plain English.

Programming languages are mostly divided into 2 camps: statically typed and dynamically typed. A static-type strategy resembles a acceptable of Legos successful which pieces interlock lone with others of the close signifier and size, making definite mistakes physically impossible. With dynamic typing, you tin jam pieces unneurotic nevertheless you want. While this is theoretically much flexible connected a tiny scale, that state backfires erstwhile you’re gathering ample structures—certain types of errors are caught lone erstwhile the programme is running. The infinitesimal you enactment value connected your Lego footbridge, successful different words, it slumps into a useless heap.

Ruby, you might’ve guessed, is dynamically typed. Python and JavaScript are too, but implicit the years, those communities person developed blase tools to marque them behave much responsibly. None of Ruby’s existent solutions are connected par with those. It’s acold excessively conducive to what programmers telephone “footguns,” features that marque it each excessively casual to sprout yourself successful the foot.