In message <Vh%pf.873$Or5.754 / tornado.southeast.rr.com>, Timothy Hunter 
<cyclists / nc.rr.com> writes
>Just a thought: a programming language that is free, easy to learn, 
>rewards mastery, and has flocks of eager devotees who want to share 
>their knowledge for free offers little incentive to a guy who needs to 
>earn a living writing and lecturing and teaching and consulting.

Disagree. The type of people that pay his lecturing fees will always be 
willing to pay for lectures regardless of language. There are plenty of 
people lecturing on the VB circuit.

If anything I'd go the opposite - it provides him with a potentially 
larger army of potential attendees at such conferences, especially if 
Ruby goes mainstream.

Funny, I read the article Hal referred to this morning and then found 
this thread later today. I felt the article kind of didn't say much 
other than "there is no reason to change to Ruby if you already know 
Python".

As part of our software tool beta tests we talk with software engineers 
that use a variety of languages. I was chatting with a very keen beta 
tester of a Python flow tracer product and asked if he had tried Ruby as 
I preferred it to Python. His answer was that he didn't have the time 
(professionally) or time and energy in his private life (father, 
husband, etc) to learn Ruby for fun. It would need to be for a 
commercial reason and he had none. I guess many in the Python camp won't 
change language unless they have a business reason to change.

Stephen
-- 
Stephen Kellett
Object Media Limited    http://www.objmedia.demon.co.uk/software.html
Computer Consultancy, Software Development
Windows C++, Java, Assembler, Performance Analysis, Troubleshooting