Jeremy McAnally wrote:
> I think these sorts of things are what sell to people in management
> honestly.  For example, I've been working on selling Ruby/Rails to my
> superiors here on campus.  They're very security and stability
> conscience, so mentioning anything other than PHP for the website and
> Java for application software is pretty much out of the question.  The
> first question out of their mouth was "Who else is using it?  We're
> not going to use it unless it's been proven."  Point blank.

I whole-heartedly agree. Success stories like one I heard on
http://podcast.rubyonrails.org/programs/1/episodes/josh_shairbaum_and_dan_manges
about Ruby being used in JPMorgan Chase are just the thing we need more
of. That and solid, impartial code reviews based on benchmarks and
security audits. Anyone up for hosting a break-into-my-rails-server
contest?

There is another rather large company that won an innovation award
recently and Ruby was a key part of it. I have been looking all over
for that again. I was hoping to find it on the Ruby success stories
page but to no avail.

To what degree does blogger.com use Ruby? Our many of our blogs
actually powered there by rails on the backend? I've read the following
quote a dozen times wondering that:

 "After researching the market, Ruby on Rails stood out as the
  best choice.  We have been very happy with that decision. We
  will continue building on Rails and consider it a key business
advantage."
      -Evan Williams, Creator of Blogger and ODEO

Having a success stories page is something of a two-bladed sword,
however. If it isn't kept current or lacks content having the page can
leave one with a "that's it" feeling. Many of the very large successes
within the enterprise, I fear, will never be outed simple because of
the competitive and legal encumberances most enterprise Ruby users have
to face. I'm betting there are a lot of international success stories
also that are not being noticed.

Perl provides an interesting comparison here. It didn't and doesn't
need a success stories page because it has always held so much together
that is hard to quantify.  Unfortunately, like Ruby, I bet some large
companies would even be ashamed to admit they are using either of these
dynamic languages the way they are. It's like everyone's dirty little
secret. Somehow they are still falsely viewed as toy languages or
something to glue together *real* applications. Ruby and Perl users
seem to be fighting those same stigmas. Python, however, seems to have
somehow overcome that in my experience, although I haven't a clue how.

It amazes me that people see PHP as a *stable* language, anyone who
does has never watched the 1.4 stuff put memory through the roof. Same
goes for Java, whose now long corrected crappy JVM burned me real bad
in 97 with faulty hand-off of threads when run from a servlet engine.
In those cases the marketing train seems to run right over any
concerns. Companies are more than happy to boast about Java because of
the *perception* of stability and maturity it enjoys, which after some
10+ years of corporate adoption and tweeking it may finally deserve
despite how horrible the language itself can be. [Can you believe there
are still no closures? And generics? What's the deal, trying to be a
pseudo-dynamic language? Although I must disclose I only know generics
from reading and hearing about them.]

One thing I think all the communities will agree on though, Ruby is
here to stay in a big way.

Could it be the one true language bringing balance and restoring peace
to the smalltalkers, lispers, pylons, perl mongers and java drones?
Nah. But you can't ignore the download numbers, usage statistics,
newsgroup postings, and anecdotal water-cooler research. Ruby is
infecting intelligent minds everywhere. ;-)