Alexey Verkhovsky wrote:

> Actually, most do, and rightly so. After an initial release, a successful
> application has to be maintained for the next 10 to 30 years. At some point
> it becomes "legacy", which typically means "nobody really understands how
> this stuff works anymore; reflecting new business changes is too slow and
> too expensive, if at all possible". Some applications become legacy on 
> day 1
> of production. Some don't. Choice of technology plays a big part here.

Yes, I've experienced that first hand at my old employer. Whole sections 
of code that have been forgotten, or that had no documentation anymore.

And because of a (self-inflicted) lock in with two vendors, together 
with (really) a bad case of featuritis, the software became a nightmare. 
And this is a SMB, mind, and not nearly in the same league as SAP or IBM.

> So far, people who choose Ruby are people who have a taste for tools and
> practices. Alas, much software is created by people with no such taste, and
> fragile code can be written code in any language.

As a newby to programming in general (sans two short episodes with C# 
and PHP), I've noticed that Ruby makes it really easy to write good, 
and, more importantly, readable code.
I can only speak for myself, but I'm drawn to write my code 
object-oriented where it makes sense, and in as few lines as possible, 
while still maintaining flexibility.

Of course, this avenue opens itself up slowly, as I learn more and more 
about Ruby and programming practices in general. One month ago, I 
wouldn't have grasped the point of Unit::Test, but now I'm taking a good 
deep look at it, and I'm going to work with that, too. (It feels filthy 
to write more than 10 lines of precedural code without tests.)

My .02EUR

-- 
Phillip "CynicalRyan" Gawlowski
http://cynicalryan.110mb.com/

Rule of Open-Source Programming #6:

The user is always right unless proven otherwise by the developer.