# If you are unhappy with the direction of Ruby 1.8.7+, respond **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [February 11, 2009, 6:12pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090 "2009-02-11T18:12:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/e47774/32.png) [@naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/naething)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 9:13pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/21 "2009-02-11T21:13:24Z")
On 11 Feb 2009, at 19:55, Gregory B. wrote: > > Yeah, look what it did to Forth. > > Don’t just say it, show it. > > [http://vividpicture.com/aleks/atari/forth.jpg](http://vividpicture.com/aleks/atari/forth.jpg) Too many old Forth hands on here ;p With all this back-porting it’s as if the foreshadowed magnitude of Ruby 2.0 is making the core team nervous of turning 1.9 into a genuine stable branch, so instead they’re forcing the stable features into 1.8 instead. I’m sure this is a complete misreading of their intent on my part but it is a worrying path to be heading down. I’ll admit that so far I’ve not had any problems with 1.8.7 but my colleague Romek has been having a horrible time with its OpenSSL support and quite a few of the tools he’s written with 1.8.6 no longer work. We’re currently debating whether or not to bite the bullet and move to 1.9.1 - assuming the current crop of books are an accurate representation. Anyway if I or another developer want 1.9 features and/or syntax we’ll use 1.9 and the fact that some of us choose not to do so at this time is something I’d like to see respected by the core team. +1 Ellie ## Eleanor McHugh Games With Brains [http://slides.games-with-brains.net](http://slides.games-with-brains.net) raise ArgumentError unless @reality.responds\_to? :reason ---
**Author:** ![naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/e47774/32.png) [@naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/naething)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 9:18pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/22 "2009-02-11T21:18:44Z")
On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 6:10 PM, Gregory B. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > My goal is to survey ruby-talk so that the core Ruby team has a chance > to see what people really want. I’m curious to see if this is as > one-sided as I think it is. > > -greg Good idea Greg, now that Ruby1.9 is out I really fail to see the advantages of this. I am writing lots of compatibility code between 1.8.6 1.8.7 and 1.9 and that really is time not too well spent. I would like 1.8.6–\>1.8.8 so that I can just drop 1.8.7 support 1.8.7, 1.8.9 not really a strong opinion here, those could follow the rule of dev. releases: use on own risk. 1.9 of course is great no complaints. Cheers Robert ---
**Author:** ![naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/e47774/32.png) [@naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/naething)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 9:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/23 "2009-02-11T21:17:32Z")
I am not happy. Ruby 1.8.7 and Ruby 1.8.8 are attempts to bridge the gap between 1.8.6 and 1.9, but they change the 1.8 line in much more drastic ways that is warranted by a minor version number change. That’s one point against them. A similar approach in the Python community has led to 2.6, 2.7 releases stepping toward 3.0, but those are major release version number changes and they’re only doing them if the community demands them. In this case, 1.8.7 and 1.8.8 are moving forward whether the community wants them or not. Another point against. Minor version releases should certainly not break things except as needed to fix bugs. Ruby 1.8.7 did this initially. They should not add entirely new APIs incompatible with other minor releases. They should not add new syntax incompatible with other minor releases. Ruby 1.8.7 does the former, and 1.8.8 syntax backports will do the latter. More points against. I still feel like Ruby 1.9 should have been 2.0. Then 1.8.7 could have been 1.9, 1.8.8 could be 1.10, and so on, and people depending on “Ruby 1.8” to behave like “Ruby 1.8” would not be forced to upgrade. In general, I don’t have any doubt that 1.8.7 and 1.8.8 would be fine standalone releases, but making them be minor version number changes essentially forces everyone to upgrade eventually, whether they want to or not, since Ruby distributors generally don’t expect a 0.0.x release to be filled with incompatible changes or additions. Ubuntu, for example, now installs 1.8.7 by default, so Ubuntu users are now much more likely to write code that doesn’t work on 1.8.6. And note also that Ruby core has only a few resources to maintain Ruby versions…which means the existence of 1.8.7 and plans for 1.8.8 will eventually force 1.8.6 to be abandoned like 1.8.5 and 1.8.4. How would you feel about 1.8.6 being EOLed because of 1.8.7 and 1.8.8 taking up resources? - Charlie ---
**Author:** ![naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/e47774/32.png) [@naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/naething)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 9:55pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/24 "2009-02-11T21:55:58Z")
On Feb 11, 2:04 pm, “M. Edward (Ed) Borasky” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > The process of ANS standardization focused the Forth community and > produced a syntax and semantics that are well-regarded in today’s Forth > community. I wouldn’t be using Forth today if it weren’t for the ANS > standard! The process of ANS standardization decimated the Forth community and produced a syntax and semantics that are grudgingly accepted by some in today’s tiny Forth community. He wouldn’t be using Forth today if it weren’t for the ANS standard! (A strong argument against standardization.) ---
**Author:** ![naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/e47774/32.png) [@naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/naething)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 10:03pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/25 "2009-02-11T22:03:39Z")
On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 12:10 PM, Gregory B. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)wrote: > My goal is to survey ruby-talk so that the core Ruby team has a chance > to see what people really want. I’m curious to see if this is as > one-sided as I think it is. +1024! Others have pointed out the folly of having a teeny version number change carry API breaking changes. Ruby 1.8.7 is NOT compatible with Ruby 1.8.6. On an aside do any of the OS X users know if there’s a way in Macports to pin the version number of a package? The whole Ruby 1.8.7 thing has made me very paranoid of doing an errant port upgrade. – Rick DeNatale Blog: [http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/](http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/) Twitter: [http://twitter.com/RickDeNatale](http://twitter.com/RickDeNatale) ---
**Author:** ![naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/e47774/32.png) [@naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/naething)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 10:16pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/26 "2009-02-11T22:16:01Z")
On 11.02.2009 18:27, James G. wrote: > The new releases involve big changes and even if they are fully > backwards compatible about what they will run, they are still creating > pretty big compatibility gaps. Code using any of the new 1.8.7 > features won’t run on 1.8.6 and lower. Well, but this is usual, isn’t it? If you want exact 1.8.6 then take 1.8.6. Or do you see changes in the third number as sole bug fix changes? > It sounds as if 1.8.8 intends > to take this farther, so code written to that won’t work in the > different 1.8.7 branch or the earlier 1.8.6 and lower stuff. But if I understand this correctly, 1.8.6 code will also run on 1.8.7 and later. > Thus I > feel we now have three different versions of Ruby 1.8 on the table > (counting the not yet released 1.8.8). That seems to be the case. Maybe 1.8.7 should really have been 1.9.0 but that version is taken already… IMHO the changes in 1.9 are big enough to warrant a 2.x but I guess Matz et al. have put quite a bit of thought into the version numbers - so maybe we should hear that before we make any judgments about what fits in a release and what not. Kind regards robert ---
**Author:** ![naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/e47774/32.png) [@naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/naething)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 10:16pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/27 "2009-02-11T22:16:37Z")
On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 1:42 PM, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)wrote: > I’ve posted my opinions on Ruby-Core, but I’ll summarize them here: > > 1. The Ruby community should proceed with all deliberate speed towards > ISO standardization of the language. Matz and his team announced that they were beginning and effort towards this end at RubyConf 2008. However, I’m not sure I understand if their approach of doing this under the aegis of (IIRC) the Linux Foundation gets us to an ISO standard, based on my experiences of the ANSI/ISO process when I worked on standards like X3J20 for Smalltalk. > facto" standard versions have designated numbers already, why not keep > them as they are? As others point out, there are a lot of packaging systems which make the assumption that a minor version number change is compatible. When the ruby team breaks that assumption, it can cause havoc for those who install and maintain their system with standard tools like dpkg/apt-get, ports, etc. Some of the maintainers of packaged software don’t really work with the packages they maintain, and aren’t necessarily aware of or appreciative of philosophical differences like these. When the upstream developers break the assumptions of the package maintainers, it can lead to as much trouble as when the package maintainers disagree with the philosophy of the upstream developers and do things their own way. I’m talking about what debian/ubuntu do/did to rubygems here. – Rick DeNatale Blog: [http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/](http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/) Twitter: [http://twitter.com/RickDeNatale](http://twitter.com/RickDeNatale) ---
**Author:** ![naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/e47774/32.png) [@naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/naething)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 10:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/28 "2009-02-11T22:46:39Z")
2009/2/11 Rick DeNatale [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid): > Ruby 1.8.7 is NOT compatible with Ruby 1.8.6. I’ve seen many people claiming this, and they might be right of course, but no one has shown any examples yet. If it is so hard to find 1.8.6 code that doesn’t work with 1.8.7, the backward compatibility of 1.8.7 seems to be pretty good. Regards, Pit ---
**Author:** ![naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/e47774/32.png) [@naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/naething)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 10:56pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/29 "2009-02-11T22:56:39Z")
On Feb 11, 2009, at 3:42 PM, Pit C. wrote: > 2009/2/11 Rick DeNatale [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid): > > > Ruby 1.8.7 is NOT compatible with Ruby 1.8.6. > > I’ve seen many people claiming this, and they might be right of > course, but no one has shown any examples yet. This is trivial to prove. This code: Object.new.tap { |o| p o } runs on 1.8.7 and not 1.8.6. James Edward G. II ---
**Author:** ![naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/e47774/32.png) [@naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/naething)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 10:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/30 "2009-02-11T22:57:49Z")
Pit C. wrote: > 2009/2/11 Rick DeNatale [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid): > > > Ruby 1.8.7 is NOT compatible with Ruby 1.8.6. > > I’ve seen many people claiming this, and they might be right of > course, but no one has shown any examples yet. If it is so hard to > find 1.8.6 code that doesn’t work with 1.8.7, the backward > compatibility of 1.8.7 seems to be pretty good. Well, Rails. And many SWIG-based C-extensions - eg wxRuby. But this misses the main point - that there is no assurance that code developed using 1.8.7 (or 1.8.8) will run on 1.8.6. And no way of checking, other than scrutinising the ChangeLog. This is a huge disservice to library authors and users. a ---
**Author:** ![naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/e47774/32.png) [@naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/naething)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 10:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/31 "2009-02-11T22:54:53Z")
On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 4:13 PM, Robert K. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)wrote: > > I’m bothered by the new versioning scheme. > > > > The new releases involve big changes and even if they are fully backwards > > compatible about what they will run, they are still creating pretty big > > compatibility gaps. Code using any of the new 1.8.7 features won’t run on > > 1.8.6 and lower. > > Well, but this is usual, isn’t it? If you want exact 1.8.6 then take > 1.8.6. Or do you see changes in the third number as sole bug fix changes? That’s the industry practice, a minor version number change normally means that there should be no or very little impact on the installed base of ‘legacy’ code. It sounds as if 1.8.8 intends to take this farther, so code written to > that won’t work in the different 1.8.7 branch or the earlier 1.8.6 and > lower stuff. But if I understand this correctly, 1.8.6 code will also run on 1.8.7 and > later. I must say that I’m not entirely up to date with what NOW works on 1.8.7, the stuff which used to break, e.g. rails and many gems has been catching up to the changes, but that is cold comfort for those who are faced with a broken deployment and either have to back-level dependencies, or go through a sometimes painful process of migrating a large application from the version of, say rails, they were using to the new one which runs on 1.8.7. It’s not so much of a problem for folks writing standalone code, or code with a small set of dependencies, but it has, and I suspect it continues to have, a large impact on a lot of folks trying to maintain their bread and butter. > As I remember it, Matz didn’t want to have a version number like 1.8.10, and since there was danger of ‘running out’ the version numbering scheme was changed to make 1.9.0 the ‘unstable’ development release, and use a teeny number greater than or equal to 1 to indicate stability. This was OK as it stood, but then 1.8.7 came along and introduced incompatible changes backported from 1.9.0. Regardless of the percentage of gems and frameworks which have been updated to work with 1.8.7. I still maintain that the backporting in 1.8.7 was a bad idea, and pushing it further would compound the problem. – Rick DeNatale Blog: [http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/](http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/) Twitter: [http://twitter.com/RickDeNatale](http://twitter.com/RickDeNatale) ---
**Author:** ![naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/e47774/32.png) [@naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/naething)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 11:10pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/32 "2009-02-11T23:10:12Z")
On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 4:53 PM, James G. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)wrote: > This is trivial to prove. This code: > > Object.new.tap { |o| p o } > > runs on 1.8.7 and not 1.8.6. True, although the real issue is that there is code which runs on 1.8.6 and doesn’t run ‘correctly’ on 1.8.7. The real problem is when the semantics have changed, and this breaks frameworks and gems and such. – Rick DeNatale Blog: [http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/](http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/) Twitter: [http://twitter.com/RickDeNatale](http://twitter.com/RickDeNatale) ---
**Author:** ![naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/e47774/32.png) [@naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/naething)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 11:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/33 "2009-02-11T23:19:35Z")
2009/2/11 Alex F. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid): > Well, Rails. And many SWIG-based C-extensions - eg wxRuby. AFAIK 1.8.7 introduced a method that Rails was using. This could have happened in previous Ruby upgrades as well. I don’t see why this is something special with 1.8.7. As for the C extensions: do you have more information about what was changed in the Ruby internals that lead to those problems? > But this misses the main point - that there is no assurance that code > developed using 1.8.7 (or 1.8.8) will run on 1.8.6. Again, this is nothing special with the 1.8.7 release. It has been like this since I’m using Ruby, which is since 2000. The important point is that (most) 1.8.6 code still runs on 1.8.7. The only thing I understand you having problems with is that for other software projects you can expect that for example no new methods are introduced between a.b.c and a.b.d, so that the Rails problem wouldn’t have occurred there. But, again, Ruby version numbers have never been working like that. Despite this we have been able to arrive at 1.8.6, and I still don’t see what’s so special with 1.8.7 that we should stop at 1.8.6. Regards, Pit ---
**Author:** ![naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/e47774/32.png) [@naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/naething)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 11:34pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/34 "2009-02-11T23:34:50Z")
2009/2/11 Rick DeNatale [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid): > True, although the real issue is that there is code which runs on 1.8.6 and > doesn’t run ‘correctly’ on 1.8.7. > > The real problem is when the semantics have changed, and this breaks > frameworks and gems and such. But this is because the former was consider a bug or for another reason? For example, (taken from [http://svn.ruby-lang.org/repos/ruby/tags/v1\_8\_7/NEWS](http://svn.ruby-lang.org/repos/ruby/tags/v1_8_7/NEWS) ) - Date.parse Looks like a really strange change to me. In fact, it confuses me. Ok, I know I can use Date.strptime when I know what I’m dealing with, but I still don’t get the point. Someone can enlighten me, please? Regards, Serabe ---
**Author:** ![naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/e47774/32.png) [@naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/naething)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2009, 11:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/35 "2009-02-11T23:17:50Z")
Le 11 février 2009 à 22:53, Alex F. a écrit : > But this misses the main point - that there is no assurance that code > developed using 1.8.7 (or 1.8.8) will run on 1.8.6. And no way of > checking, other than scrutinising the ChangeLog. This is a huge > disservice to library authors and users. Somehow, I was wondering why the “new” code in 1.8.(7|8) isn’t made available through a library. Something like : require “compat-1.9” Object.new.tap { |o| p o } I guess that it’s a lot of work if it’s implemented in C, but maybe the work that went into backporting the functionality was misdirected and could have been more useful in doing a few ruby-written libraries to help smoothen the transition… My 2 euro-cents. Fred ---
**Author:** ![naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/e47774/32.png) [@naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/naething)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 12:00am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/36 "2009-02-12T00:00:38Z")
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote: > All other versions are irrelevant and a waste of precious developer > energy as far as I’m concerned. But what if they want to waste their energy there? To maintain an old piece of crap like MRI cannot be nothing but boring. Every precious developers you can think of is precious just because he/she can create a bright new idea. No one wants to nurse a dead-ended product. ---
**Author:** ![naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/e47774/32.png) [@naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/naething)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 12:07am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/37 "2009-02-12T00:07:40Z")
+1 if 1.8.7 can’t run 1.8.6 code. I don’t so much care if they _add_ abilities to bridge to 1.9. That said, I have a simple solution. Move to 1.9.1 as fast as your fingers will allow. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Get’r done. T. ---
**Author:** ![naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/e47774/32.png) [@naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/naething)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 12:46am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/38 "2009-02-12T00:46:10Z")
[climbs to the top of the pile-up] This is like an argument about what to do with the tricycle you rode as a kid. Sure you may disagree about the current condition of the tricycle, but really, who cares? You are grown up now. You can avoid the issue entirely if you just stop riding the tricycle. ---
**Author:** ![naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/e47774/32.png) [@naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/naething)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 12:25am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/39 "2009-02-12T00:25:15Z")
2009/2/11 Pit C. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) > 2009/2/11 Rick DeNatale [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid): > > > Ruby 1.8.7 is NOT compatible with Ruby 1.8.6. > > I’ve seen many people claiming this, and they might be right of > course, but no one has shown any examples yet. If it is so hard to > find 1.8.6 code that doesn’t work with 1.8.7, the backward > compatibility of 1.8.7 seems to be pretty good. Requires hoe, ZenTest and 1.8.6 and 1.8.7 installed using multiruby: git clone git://github.com/jcoglan/packr.git packr cd packr git co -b 3.1 origin/3.1 git co 4cc307 rake multi This is not using any new 1.8.7 features, it’s using 1.8.6 behaviour that broke. Under 1.8.6, hashes had keys inserted in the order in which they appear in the source, which is not true of 1.8.7. Granted, this ordering was never explicitly intended for 1.8.x, but still it introduced major bugs in my code. PackR still has a bug I’m unable to fix on 1.8.7, though thankfully it’s not a show-stopper, it’s a nice-to-have ‘bonus feature’ that doesn’t work. I for one do not want to pull updates to ruby1.8 from my package manager and have even more of my code break, esp. as I maintain various libraries and it’s hell having to explain to people that my code is broken because their package manager is not fine-grained enough and they need to install stuff from source. I expect stuff to not be 100% on 1.9, but my experience so far is that 1.9 has caused me fewer and more easily fixable bugs than 1.8.7. ---
**Author:** ![naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/e47774/32.png) [@naething](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/naething)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2009, 12:56am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/40 "2009-02-12T00:56:53Z")
On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 6:44 PM, Mike G. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > [climbs to the top of the pile-up] > > This is like an argument about what to do with the tricycle you rode as > a kid. Sure you may disagree about the current condition of the > tricycle, but really, who cares? You are grown up now. You can avoid > the issue entirely if you just stop riding the tricycle. You’re right. So then perhaps the whole 1.8 series should be end-of-lifed. I’d be fine with that. But Ruby 1.8.7 is more like thaking the old tricycle out and putting a car engine on it. Cute, but not a very useful tricycle or car at that point. -greg [Previous page](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090.md?page=1) [Next page](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090.md?page=3)