# 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:** 6
**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, 8:47pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/101 "2009-02-12T20:47:44Z")
On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 2:33 PM, Pit C. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > a “Ruby 1.8”, despite the differences to 1.8.6? In the end I’m sure it > will be 1.8.6, so why not name it as such? Why interpret more into it > as it really is? I understand what you mean here, and actually, you’re right in saying that the term “Ruby 1.8” is completely amorphous. But I suppose what I’m saying is that from 1.8.2 up until 1.8.6, I did not once say “Wow! now I can do all this new cool stuff!”. I also didn’t worry too much about whether code I wrote on my latest Ruby 1.8 version would work in various out of date production environments. I did not worry about patches from contributors having the same problem in my open source projects. The situation also might be different for me if 1.9 didn’t exist. But I’m not sure you’ll agree with my reasoning on that, and it’s not terribly important anyway, so I won’t elaborate further. > here, so I’ll shut up now. > I think you’re looking at this from the perspective of standalone Ruby > code, and I can see a bit of what you’re saying from that perspective. > But I’m speaking based on my experience of having to deploy code to > older versions of Ruby in a commercial setting, as well as running > several mainstream open source projects that have an active > contributor base. It is possible that we’re ‘both right’ in our own > situations, and that this solution of having EY run 1.8.6 might give > us the best of both worlds. I apologize for using vague terminology about ‘1.8’, it’s probably the main source of dispute here. -greg ---
**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, 8:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/102 "2009-02-12T20:35:58Z")
On Feb 12, 2009, at 1:47 PM, Nobuyoshi N. wrote: > Hi, > > At Fri, 13 Feb 2009 02:36:06 +0900, > Rick DeNatale wrote in [ruby-talk:327919]: > > > Although, I’m at a loss as to what you’d use for the version number > > on the > > first maintenance release. > > 1.8.6-p###. +1 on that. I never even consider downloading 1.8.7 or later for a customer… I just grab the most recent 1.8.6-pxxx release. If p288 came out and didn’t break anything, I’d start using that… Yours, tom ---
**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, 9:06pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/103 "2009-02-12T21:06:00Z")
Stefan L. wrote: > internal AST is not part of its public API, much > less part of Ruby 1.8, the language. So if Ruby 1.8.7 had broken RubyInline, that would be okay? ---
**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, 9:11pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/104 "2009-02-12T21:11:52Z")
Pit C. wrote: > will be 1.8.6, so why not name it as such? Why interpret more into it > as it really is? “Ruby 1.8” is that which installs libraries into $PREFIX\_DIR/lib/ruby/1.8 . ---
**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, 9:33pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/105 "2009-02-12T21:33:03Z")
2009/2/12 Phlip [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid): > > internal NODE structure." > > > > It’s cool that such libraries exist, but AFAIK MRI’s > > internal AST is not part of its public API, much > > less part of Ruby 1.8, the language. > > So if Ruby 1.8.7 had broken RubyInline, that would be okay? If it relies on MRI internals there would definitely be no fault on the 1.8 maintainers side. This is common sense. If you rely on internals and monkey patching, your code can break when you update a dependency. Stefan ---
**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, 9:55pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/106 "2009-02-12T21:55:57Z")
On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 11:07 AM, Gregory B. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > 1.8.7 and beyond, those who like the idea will not be left > disappointed. But that still leaves a communication gap between two groups of implementers – Engine Y. and “Ruby-Core” – and the Linux distros that are probably only going to package _one_ Ruby and are expecting _their_ user base to have working Ruby and Rails and gems! Right now, I’m running openSUSE 11.1, which ships 1.8.7. IIRC RHEL 5 / CentOS 5 are still shipping 1.8.5, and I have no idea what’s in the two most recent versions of Ubuntu, or what’s going to be in Debian Lenny when it releases in the near future. In short, the distro Ruby herds need to be in the loop, or the Ruby community will have a bunch of implementations to choose from. > -greg > > – > Technical Blaag at: [http://blog.majesticseacreature.com](http://blog.majesticseacreature.com) > Non-tech stuff at: [http://metametta.blogspot.com](http://metametta.blogspot.com) > “Ruby Best Practices” Book now in O’Reilly Roughcuts: > [http://rubybestpractices.com](http://rubybestpractices.com) – M. Edward (Ed) Borasky I’ve never met a happy clam. In fact, most of them were pretty steamed. ---
**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, 10:55pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/107 "2009-02-12T22:55:56Z")
On Feb 12, 4:13 pm, “M. Edward (Ed) Borasky” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > of ruby1.8.6 and we would like to step up to the plate for the whole ruby > > community. Please respond here if you think Engine yard would make good > > maintainers of the ruby1.8.6 lineage I’ll like to jump late on this thread, but just not trying to add more noise… > Thanks!! Yes, I think you’d be ideal for this. I do have some questions, though: > > 1. Would there be a chance of merging the efficiencies of Ruby > Enterprise Edition, especially copy-on-write friendliness, into the > “Engine Y. 1.8.6 stack?” CoW will not be cross-platform compatible (at least not for Windows). The amount of changes needed by CoW are so big because the C code of Ruby sometimes can be complicated. > 1. Will this impact Rubinius? I hope not, and I think it wouldn’t. > 1. Will there be a contribution to the Windows One-Click Installer > project as part of this? I wish they do, or at least merge contributions back 🙂 Regards, ---
**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, 10:24pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/108 "2009-02-12T22:24:45Z")
2009/2/12 Gregory B. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid): > But I suppose what I’m saying is that from 1.8.2 up until 1.8.6, I did > not once say “Wow! now I can do all this new cool stuff!”. I also > didn’t worry too much about whether code I wrote on my latest Ruby 1.8 > version would work in various out of date production environments. I > did not worry about patches from contributors having the same problem > in my open source projects. Yeah, I think I understand you, too. Of course you could develop right away in 1.8.7 without using the new features. This code should still work with 1.8.6. But it would require you to always think about this necessity, and you would have no immediate feedback when you accidentally used one of the new features. > I apologize for using vague terminology about ‘1.8’, it’s probably the > main source of dispute here. There’s absolutely no reason to apologize, Greg. To me the main source of dispute was that so many people were telling “1.8.7 breaks compatibility with 1.8.6” but almost no none could prove this. Just one more remark to Joel’s post, and then I’ll definitely shut up. 2009/2/12 Joel VanderWerf [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid): > “Ruby 1.8” is that which installs libraries into > $PREFIX\_DIR/lib/ruby/1.8 . Hmm, currently this includes every release from 1.8.0 to 1.8.7, right? 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 12, 2009, 11:10pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/109 "2009-02-12T23:10:38Z")
On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 10:19 PM, Pit C. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > There’s absolutely no reason to apologize, Greg. To me the main source > of dispute was that so many people were telling “1.8.7 breaks > compatibility with 1.8.6” but almost no none could prove this. > That is a very good point. My issues however are much more of a > practical or psychological reason > The pure fact that incompatibilities exist, however small, will > certainly not assure me about BW (8.7 → 8.6 )compatibility for future > releases and neither for FW(8.6-\>8.7+). > That’s why I voted on this thread and not the other one. I felt that Greg somehow was very much anticipating trouble rather than seeing it around already. I was quite impressed by that vision, but that of course does not mean that he/we is/are correct :). 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 13, 2009, 12:02am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/110 "2009-02-13T00:02:54Z")
Yossef M. wrote: > Or maybe you meant the bug was that people were comparing strings at > all, which is understandable (though a strange word choice). Yes, that’s what I meant. - 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 13, 2009, 12:39am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/111 "2009-02-13T00:39:13Z")
Hi, In message “Re: If you are unhappy with the direction of Ruby 1.8.7+, respond” on Fri, 13 Feb 2009 02:10:41 +0900, Stefan L. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) writes: |What do you mean with “Hash ordering”? |An order for Hash instances? Hash doesn’t define a \<=\> method. |Or iteration order of Hash elements? That wasn’t defined |in 1.8.6 (I don’t know if it is in 1.8.7). I think he relied on the version/implementation specific behavior, so 1.8.7 HELPED to find a bug in HIS code, unless I am wrong in any ways. Any other example of 1.8.7 incompatibility? I am not happy with FUD-like attitude against 1.8.7. From my point of view, 1.8.7 is a good release with unfortunate beginning. There are slight incompatibility, but every past releases also had some sort of incompatibilities as well. I’d like to use 1.8.7 to write new 1.8 code. It might be true that number of “enterprisey” Ruby users have grown beyond our expectation, and we might need to keep “maintained stable snapshot of the past version”, which happen to be 1.8.6, for existing code base, that’s OK. We ARE keeping. If we want to keep it after 1.8.8 is out (in whatever state), we will need a volunteer to replace Shyouhei. EngineYard raised their hands for 1.8.6 maintainer. It’s OK. I am not sure when we pass the role, now or future. In any case, we have to discuss 1.8.6 maintenance policy. Let’s move to ruby-core. ``` matz. ``` ---
**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 13, 2009, 1:18am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/112 "2009-02-13T01:18:59Z")
2009/2/12 David A. Black [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) > > > in 1.8.6 (I don’t know if it is in 1.8.7). > > Hashes aren’t ordered at all in 1.8, as far as I know. I realise that there is no explicit iteration order specified for hashes in 1.8. All I know is that this patch fixed by 1.8.7 bugs: > Basically involves inserting keys in an explicit order rather than using hash literals. This project uses a bunch of custom collection classes but they’re basically wrappers for arrays and hashes that merge array and hash functionality into a single class. The constructors would iterate over the hashes provided and insert values, and this insertion order changed in 1.8.7. I would concede that this is something of a grey area as it’s neither a bug fix or an explicit feature addition, but the question was asked about 1.8.6 code that broke, and this is an example. I still have a regex-related bug in this project that I’ve been unable to fix under 1.8.7. In fact, if anyone is able to fix the last remaining test failure I’d be incredibly grateful. ---
**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 13, 2009, 2:25am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/113 "2009-02-13T02:25:38Z")
On 2009-02-12, Ezra Z. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Engine Y. is willing to step up as the official maintainer > of ruby1.8.6. We can provide the right amount of human resources as > well as server and QA resources with automated CI running the > rubyspecs. This is excellent! Jeremy H. ---
**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 13, 2009, 2:13am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/114 "2009-02-13T02:13:55Z")
Hi – On Fri, 13 Feb 2009, James C. wrote: > > > > An order for Hash instances? Hash doesn’t define a \<=\> method. > > > > the patch). > > > > Hashes aren’t ordered at all in 1.8, as far as I know. > > I realise that there is no explicit iteration order specified for hashes in > 1.8. All I know is that this patch fixed by 1.8.7 bugs: Sorry, I misunderstood what you were getting at. > fix or an explicit feature addition, but the question was asked about 1.8.6 > code that broke, and this is an example. I still have a regex-related bug in > this project that I’ve been unable to fix under 1.8.7. In fact, if anyone is > able to fix the last remaining test failure I’d be incredibly grateful. I can’t get any of your tests to fail under 1.8.7, at least the one I’ve got installed on the machine where I tried it (pl0). David – David A. Black / Ruby Power and Light, LLC Ruby/Rails consulting & training: [http://www.rubypal.com](http://www.rubypal.com) Coming in 2009: The Well-Grounded Rubyist ([The Well-Grounded Rubyist](http://manning.com/black2)) [http://www.wishsight.com](http://www.wishsight.com) =\> Independent, social wishlist management! ---
**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 13, 2009, 4:51am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/115 "2009-02-13T04:51:10Z")
The entire 1.8.x series should be backward compatible to 1.8.6 NOT forward compatible to 1.9.x. ---
**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 13, 2009, 6:06am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/116 "2009-02-13T06:06:19Z")
Stefan L. wrote: > > This is trivial to prove. This code: > > Important is backwards compatibility and Ruby 1.8.7 > > is backwards compatible. Nobody so far has shown > > where 1.8.7 is not backwards compatible. > > That Rails broke was their own fault. They extend core > classes, so clashes are to be expected. If they had > tested with an 1.8.7 release candidate, I’m sure they > could have worked out a solution with the 1.8 maintainers. > > Stefan +1 ---
**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 13, 2009, 6:17am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/117 "2009-02-13T06:17:28Z")
Stefan L. wrote: > > > > Your code happened to work by chance. > > > To work with 1.8.7, you need to create an empty hash > > and add keys one by one rather than putting them all in a hash > > literal (see the patch). > > Do I understand that the code relies on insertion order now? > Then it’s still working by chance in case it works at all. > > Stefan +1 Mr. Coglan seems not to understand how a hash-table is implemented. One cannot predict the iteration order because he cannot know in which bucket each element has been stored. Furthermore, it makes no sense at all to be concerned about iteration-order for a hash-table. If one is concerned about iteration-order, he should use an association-list. An element is fetched a hash-table by key, not by position, which is undefined. ---
**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 13, 2009, 4:58am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/118 "2009-02-13T04:58:45Z")
Gregory B. wrote: > I am setting up two threads in the hopes that we can see names > attached to opinions about the decision to break backwards > compatibility between Ruby 1.8.6 and Ruby 1.8.7+ > 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’. If you disagree, please find the > other thread titled ‘If you are happy with the direction of Ruby > 1.8.7, respond’. If you are in the middle, I don’t know what you > should do… write two posts? > > 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 It is absolutely wrong to change major API and syntax within a major release series. 1.8.8 should definitely go back to 100% syntactical and regression test compatability with 1.8.6 Wayne ---
**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 13, 2009, 6:18am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/119 "2009-02-13T06:18:04Z")
Hi, At Fri, 13 Feb 2009 09:16:39 +0900, James C. wrote in [ruby-talk:327995]: > 1.8.7. > Hash in 1.8 doesn’t define any kind of “order”. It’s > definitely a bug in your code as you use the word “order”. > I would concede that this is something of a grey area as it’s neither a bug > fix or an explicit feature addition, but the question was asked about 1.8.6 > code that broke, and this is an example. I still have a regex-related bug in > this project that I’ve been unable to fix under 1.8.7. In fact, if anyone is > able to fix the last remaining test failure I’d be incredibly grateful. Could you post it in another thread? ---
**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 13, 2009, 7:00am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/120 "2009-02-13T07:00:45Z")
David A. Black wrote: > matter of degree, not kind. In other words, no one is saying that > Enumerable: 22 > Array: 83 > Hash: 47 > Range: 15 > Enumerable: 43 > > (Gotta love Range 🙂 No, I don’t. I enjoy having new methods, so long as the behavior of the old methods is “exempt from mutation”. [Previous page](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090.md?page=5) [Next page](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090.md?page=7)