Robert Dober wrote:

> Sure, if you trust that they are honest, first thing to do is to ask
> for their rationale.

Sorry, I think I misunderstood what phlip meant with rationale. I thought
about a technical analysis comparing the two technologies (that would
actually be quite interesting). If by rationale you mean simply the reason
for the decision it's very easy:
Same language and framework for everyone: people can switch projects
quicker.
We have to use Java because some clients want it. Nobody asks for RoR.
Dismiss RoR.

> Maybe, after all, it makes sense.

Sure.

> that they are
> trying to get their development sharing spectrum smaller, you might be
> able to give them different options (jruby might come into play
> again). 

I really don't think we will be able to pass something like jruby. It's Java
the platform, but not Java the language. That would go against their main
reason: same language for everyone. (No, we can't rewrite all current apps
written in Java (the language))

> In an ideal world you might get a chance to present Ruby's strengths :).

I already did that when we started to evaluate it a few years ago. But it's
not really a "what is the best tool" decision this time.
 
> But in order to reason with somebody at first you have to trigger a
> dialog, do you think you are in a position to do that?

I'll sure try it :)