# If you are unhappy with the direction of Ruby 1.8.7+, respond

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090>\
**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:** 3

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**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, 1:08am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/41 "2009-02-12T01:08:35Z")

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On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 12:53 PM, [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> The process of ANS standardization decimated the Forth community

I don’t think that’s the case. What “decimated” the Forth community  
was the emergence of microprocessors powerful enough to run languages  
other than Forth and usable optimizing compilers for the C language  
for less-powerful microprocessors that previously could only be  
effectively programmed in Forth. Yes, the standardization process was  
contentious, and I have no doubt Ruby’s will be as well. But I think  
it’s something the community needs to do. Maybe the outcome of this  
thread / discussion will be to establish an on-line “standards  
committee”.

–  
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky

I’ve never met a happy clam. In fact, most of them were pretty steamed.

---

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**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, 12:50am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/42 "2009-02-12T00:50:27Z")

</div>

F. Senault wrote:

> Object.new.tap { |o| p o }
> 
> I guess that it’s a lot of work if it’s implemented in C,

I don’t see why it would be – wouldn’t be the first C extension – but  
it’s possbile I just don’t understand the issue.

Regardless, many of these are just trivial.

class Object  
def tap  
yield self  
self  
end  
end

class Symbol  
def to\_proc  
proc {|x| self.send(x) }  
end  
end

There are a few, like public\_send (which I really should be using there)  
– actually missing from 1.8.7, but I’ve actually got my own implemented  
somewhere. In fact, the above don’t really even need to be aware of  
version numbers – just something like:

unless Object.new.respond\_to? :tap  
class Object  
def tap  
…

unless :to\_proc.respond\_to? :to\_proc  
class Symbol  
def to\_proc  
…

That would allow such libraries to be distributed as gems, and they’d do  
no harm if run under 1.9 – if there’s already a C version in place, use  
that, otherwise, add our own ruby version.

In fact, this is already how I develop things. I test on 1.8.7 and  
1.9.1, but anything I build should work on 1.8.6 as well – so far,  
there’s been nothing added to 1.8.7 that can’t be added to 1.8.6 as  
well, using plain old Ruby.

---

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**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, 1:15am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/43 "2009-02-12T01:15:02Z")

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Charles Oliver N. wrote:

> 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?

This can of course be avoided if someone else follows me to continue  
supporting  
1.8.6. Merging back upper stream changes into 1.8.6 is actually easy;  
it is an  
automated process and you do not have to write C until “svn merge”  
conflicts  
something. The harder part is to decide which one to merge.

---

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**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, 1:18am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/44 "2009-02-12T01:18:34Z")

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On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 3:03 PM, Trans [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> +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.

That’s exactly _my_ plan, but I don’t have legacy Rails apps or large  
RSpec test suites to maintain.

–  
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky

I’ve never met a happy clam. In fact, most of them were pretty steamed.

---

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**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, 1:32am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/45 "2009-02-12T01:32:37Z")

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Hi Greg et al,

I’d really love to have only 1.8.6 (or compatible) then 1.9.x.

Having more seems like a waste of efforts and will (I’m afraid) make  
it more difficult to ensure various plugins/gems do work properly. As  
a consequence the ruby/rails/merb etc applications maintainers will  
meet more trouble.

+1 for 1.8.x staying compatible with 1.8.6, absolutely.

– Thibaut

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**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, 2:05am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/46 "2009-02-12T02:05:23Z")

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On 11/02/2009, Charles Oliver N. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> 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.

+1

---

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**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, 2:16am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/47 "2009-02-12T02:16:30Z")

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On 11/02/2009, Urabe S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> a bright new idea. No one wants to nurse a dead-ended product.  
> That’s completely fine but then mark the bright new idea as such, not  
> as a version of a dead-end product. It will do good service to both  
> the bright new idea and the dead-end product if they are labeled  
> correctly.

Thanks

Michal

---

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**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, 2:31am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/48 "2009-02-12T02:31:10Z")

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Pit C. wrote:

> 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.

That’s the point: library authors should be able to write against a  
‘stable’ version of the language, without fearing that a Ruby branch  
maintainer is going to happen to fancy to add a clashing method.

As a library author, it’s fair to ask me to track pre-release versions  
of 1.9, if I want to ensure timely compatibility with that. But it’s not  
reasonable to ask me to track changes on a ‘stable’ branch.

> As for the C extensions: do you have more information about what was  
> changed in the Ruby internals that lead to those problems?

[http://sourceforge.net/tracker2/?func=detail&aid=2034216&group\_id=1645&atid=101645](http://sourceforge.net/tracker2/?func=detail&aid=2034216&group_id=1645&atid=101645)

> > 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.

A folly repeated is not a folly reduced. I’ve suffered from this before  
1.8.5 → 1.8.6, and been critical of it before.

I guess that 1.8.7 has just happened to make the silliness of adding a  
random pot-pourri of features more apparent to more people.

alex

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**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, 2:45am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/49 "2009-02-12T02:45:48Z")

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Yukihiro M. wrote:

> In message “Re: If you are unhappy with the direction of Ruby 1.8.7+, respond”  
> on Thu, 12 Feb 2009 06:54:09 +0900, Alex F. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) writes:
> 
> |\> compatibility of 1.8.7 seems to be pretty good.  
> |  
> |Well, Rails. And many SWIG-based C-extensions - eg wxRuby.
> 
> We know the Rails issue (and solved), but could you elaborate on  
> issues with wxRuby and SWIG?

[http://sourceforge.net/tracker2/?func=detail&aid=2034216&group\_id=1645&atid=101645](http://sourceforge.net/tracker2/?func=detail&aid=2034216&group_id=1645&atid=101645)

a

---

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**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, 2:39am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/50 "2009-02-12T02:39:21Z")

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Hi,

In message “Re: If you are unhappy with the direction of Ruby 1.8.7+,  
respond”  
on Thu, 12 Feb 2009 06:54:09 +0900, Alex F.  
[removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) writes:

|\> compatibility of 1.8.7 seems to be pretty good.  
|  
|Well, Rails. And many SWIG-based C-extensions - eg wxRuby.

We know the Rails issue (and solved), but could you elaborate on  
issues with wxRuby and SWIG?

```
          matz.

```

---

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**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, 3:11am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/51 "2009-02-12T03:11:32Z")

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Urabe S. wrote:

> 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?

Then they have picked the wrong place for their energies. People should  
be branch maintainer because they have pride in good engineering, not to  
acquire a private laboratory for what they think are ‘cool’ features.

> 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.

People - including me - do, on many open-source projects. Of course it  
is a bit boring to have to work with old structures, when the future can  
be seen. But people do so because they see it’s important work to give  
confidence in the broader project.

If someone thinks it’s _so_ boring, then they should work on the  
bleeding edge, not become “stable” maintainer. I’d rather 1.8 stagnate  
than change so randomly.

a

---

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**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, 3:47am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/52 "2009-02-12T03:47:55Z")

</div>

On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 5:03 PM, Michal S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)  
wrote:

> On 11/02/2009, Charles Oliver N. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:
> 
> > 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.
> 
> +1

## I haven’t checked Fedora recently, but openSUSE 11.1 ships Ruby 1.8.7 as well.

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky

I’ve never met a happy clam. In fact, most of them were pretty steamed.

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**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, 3:27am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/53 "2009-02-12T03:27:56Z")

</div>

From: “Rick DeNatale” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)

> As I remember it, Matz didn’t want to have a version number like 1.8.10

For what it’s worth, my recollection is that matz wasn’t  
_conceptually_ opposed to it, but rather it was not considered  
acceptable to break the existing code in the field which performed  
version checks based on string compares:

> > “1.8.9” \> “1.8.8”  
> > =\> true

> > “1.8.10” \> “1.8.9”  
> > =\> false

Regards,

Bill

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**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, 6:30am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/54 "2009-02-12T06:30:30Z")

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Bill K. wrote:

> > > “1.8.9” \> “1.8.8”  
> > > =\> true
> 
> > > “1.8.10” \> “1.8.9”  
> > > =\> false

I remember that… did anyone ever suggest other number bases?

irb(main):001:0\> “1.8.9” \> “1.8.8”  
=\> true  
irb(main):002:0\> “1.8.A” \> “1.8.8”  
=\> true

Nah, too weird!

---

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**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, 6:34am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/55 "2009-02-12T06:34:36Z")

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Alex F. wrote:

> > But what if they want to waste their energy there?
> 
> Then they have picked the wrong place for their energies. People should  
> be branch maintainer because they have pride in good engineering, not to  
> acquire a private laboratory for what they think are ‘cool’ features.

I don’t intend to attack but for instance \_why hasn’t been touching his  
yaml  
stdlib for years, in spite of yaml bugs continuously reported. If \_why  
had  
such pride you say, can that be possible?

Again, I’m not attacking \_why. It’s a nature of geek being that they  
get  
interested in a new thing than old ones. Some people like you may be  
able to  
maintain existing codes, but not everyone. Do not expect others to  
behave as  
you do.

> > 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.
> 
> People - including me - do, on many open-source projects. Of course it  
> is a bit boring to have to work with old structures, when the future can  
> be seen. But people do so because they see it’s important work to give  
> confidence in the broader project.

Of course not everyone ignore bugs. In fact most bugfixes aren’t  
possible  
without many helps of core developers. It’s hence important for us not  
to  
prevent core people to pray with Ruby. Bugfixes and new features are  
both  
sourced from a developer brain and are dripped into Ruby 1.8 source code  
altogether. To filter bugfixes only isn’t easy, palming off that job to  
them  
should drastically decrease their amount of output. That shouldn’t make  
us happy.

> If someone thinks it’s _so_ boring, then they should work on the  
> bleeding edge, not become “stable” maintainer. I’d rather 1.8 stagnate  
> than change so randomly.

I suspect that’s why no one but me is touching 1.8.6 now.

---

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**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, 9:56am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/56 "2009-02-12T09:56:13Z")

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Joel VanderWerf wrote:

> > 
> 
> irb(main):002:0\> “1.8.A” \> “1.8.8”  
> =\> true
> 
> Nah, too weird!

I was looking at Erlang the other day.  
On the front page of [erlang.org](http://erlang.org):

“Erlang/OTP R12B-5 released\*”\*

-Justin

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**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, 6:55am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/57 "2009-02-12T06:55:40Z")

</div>

Urabe S. wrote:

> I don’t intend to attack but for instance \_why hasn’t been touching his yaml  
> stdlib for years, in spite of yaml bugs continuously reported. If \_why had  
> such pride you say, can that be possible?

+1

> Again, I’m not attacking \_why. It’s a nature of geek being that they get  
> interested in a new thing than old ones. Some people like you may be able to  
> maintain existing codes, but not everyone. Do not expect others to behave as  
> you do.

I expect people to unit test their libraries and leave them open for  
others to  
fix. YAML can’t recover from syntax errors, can’t accurately report  
them, and  
experiences a stray pointer bug when it tries. Yes the lexer is awesome,  
but  
libyaml is riiiight around the corner…

> I suspect that’s why no one but me is touching 1.8.6 now.

I do 1.8.6, and so does my shop.

---

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**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, 10:04am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/58 "2009-02-12T10:04:22Z")

</div>

Gregory B. wrote:

> I am setting up two threads  
> …  
> This one is for those who wish that Ruby 1.8 would go _back_ to being  
> 1.8.6 compatible in Ruby 1.8.8. If you agree with this, share your  
> thoughts or at least a simple ‘+1’.

I think it’s too late to go back now, but +1 to wishing 1.8.7 had never  
existed. It causes all sorts of confusion even on this mailing list as  
to what features do or do not exist in ruby 1.8, and gives admins an  
unnecessary dilemma: upgrade all production boxes to new and relatively  
untested code which may break existing applications? Or suffer the  
complaints from new applications which start to rely on the new  
features?

This was all handled much better in the 1.6 -\> 1.8 transition.

- 1.6 was stable
- 1.7 was developmental, and added a bunch of features
- finally it was released as 1.8
- there was no meddling with 1.6
- A separate “shim” library was released which included a number of  
useful new features from 1.8 (e.g. StringIO), which allowed some code  
written using 1.8 features to run under 1.6, thus extending the lifetime  
of 1.6

Under this model: 1.9 would have been experimental, it would have been  
released eventually as 1.10 (or as 2.0, I don’t care). 1.8 would have  
been a stable production branch, and for those people who wanted  
1.10/2.0 features, there would be an optional compatibility library.

As for numbering, it’s not so important, but the current scheme is silly  
and appears to be based on an irrational fear of exceeding 1.9. AFAICT,  
this is either because the string “1.10” doesn’t sort after “1.9”, or  
because 2.0 would somehow imply the language is especially “blessed” or  
“finalised”.

On that basis, 2.0 will never be released. IMO, YARV was a big enough  
change to warrant a new major number. If you want to see numbering done  
properly, look at FreeBSD’s release process.

Anyway, I look forward to running ruby version 1.9.9.9 in future years  
🙂

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**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, 11:23am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/59 "2009-02-12T11:23:42Z")

</div>

Bill K. wrote:

> > > “1.8.9” \> “1.8.8”  
> > > =\> true
> 
> > > “1.8.10” \> “1.8.9”  
> > > =\> false

I remember the discussions. I stand by my assertion that this is a bug.

- Charlie

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**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, 11:40am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/60 "2009-02-12T11:40:47Z")

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In article  
[removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid),  
Rick DeNatale [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> 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.

Following a ticket I opened a few weeks ago, someone has created a  
ruby186  
port.

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