Controversy: too much choice in Ruby

A tongue-in-cheek post called "So you want to be a ruby dev" has sparked a bit of controversy in the community by pointing out the overabundance of options now available to ruby learners. A lot of commentary has happened on the hacker news thread for the article, with the loudest voices complaining that while there is choice - that it isn't mandatory to learn all the options, for example in the same way as examples such as Java.

Opponents point out that the proliferation of options is confusing potential newcomers to the field, who don't rightly know where they should begin. That the community (and therefore the documentation) seems to be fragmenting, where it isn't simply missing, or so old as to be effectively obsolete.

The article sums up the situation by lamenting: "Remember when Ruby and Rails was about getting stuff done?" The implication being that newbies have to spend so much time learning about all the possible solutions... simply to choose which one they should begin to use.

A follow-on article on Ruby Inside continues the discussion, pointing out that the variety of options available to Ruby-users is its strength, rather than being a drawback. It points out that what we are missing is just a few simple "for newcomers" help-pages that clearly show how you can get started with the minimum of fuss.

The post ends by calling for ruby-developers to remember the philosophy of having many ways to do something, but to have an opinion on what the best approach should be. It also strongly calls for more straightforward "Start by doing X, then Y" how-to posts for beginner Ruby users... emulating the rather better documented beginner tutorials on the Ruby on Rails pages.

I just want a toaster...

I was buying all my basic housey stuff at Tesco today (it's *that* kind of supermarket/superstore), but feeling overwhelmed... Being in a foreign country means all the brands mean nothing to you, so you don't know which ones do what, and you find there are many brands that do things you've never even heard of.

So you have two options. You can either pick things at random and hope you aren't going to end up with your washing machine spilling a river of frothy soap suds across the floor, or check every single item to make sure it does what you expect it to do.

When you have to read the back of every bottle of washing liquid and read all the dodgy manufacturers claims that mean nothing to you to decide whether you want "unscented" or "hypoallergenic" or "automatic" or "non-biological"... and whether that actually means anything or just another manufacturer's claim (like "full of wholesome goodness")... for every single item in the shopping trolley you find it's quite easy to take several hours just to do a normal shop.

By the end of that you come to a shining wall of toasters and find yourself weighing the benefits of "hi-lift" vs "variable-browning" and whether it's better to have "sneak peek" or "cool wall" technology and you get to the stage where you just want to scream "I want something that takes bread and spits out toast, that's *all* I want!"... :P

...and since when did toasters all become so *huge*. I'm missing the toaster I had in Sydney even despite having a dodgy Singapore plug that required a plug-adapter to use. It took four slices of toast and fit into nearly the same space as my new two-slice toaster that's tall and fat and looks like some kind of shiny metal alien pod. :P

and in case you ask "well why didn't I choose one that doesn't look like that - they all do, of course. Apart from the ones that are even *bigger* and look like some kind of industrial machine that will take your bread and throw it clear across the factory floor to the industrial jam-spreader...

...in the end, of course, I went with the one that had all of the above. Because I can't be sure I won't suddenly need "cool wall" technology (whatever that is)... I can always google it when I get home.