Bruce Eckel on Ruby and Rails

I just listened to the latest podcast by the Java Posse; an interview with Bruce Eckel.  Since it's the "Java" Posse there's a fair amount of discussion about Java, but the second part of the interview dives into Bruce's thoughts on Python, Ruby and Rails.  Although he gets some things wrong, like attributing the creation of Ruby to David Heinemeir Hannson (DHH) instead of Yukihiro Matsumoto (Matz), he largely says a lot of good things about Ruby and Rails and admits where he lacks sufficient knowledge to comment.

The one part in particular I agreed with was his assesment of the Rails supporters as being "loud", as in "loud-mouthed".  He says it's a lot like the early Java days.  As a matter of fact, my first taste of Rails was a presentation by DHH.  His rhetoric in that speech was a bit much to bear, but if you can see your way past the hyperbole, and just see that the guy is truly passionate about creating "beautiful" code, you get a good idea of why Rails is the way it is.