# 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:** 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 13, 2009, 4:16pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/141 "2009-02-13T16:16:10Z")
Hi – On Sat, 14 Feb 2009, Rick DeNatale wrote: > Sometime after that discussion, Matz, who I know has much more than a basic > understanding of hash-tables, decided that, yes, > defining the iteration order of Ruby hashes to be by insertion order, and > that this was easily done with minimal impact to performance/space > requirements by linking buckets in the internal hash table used to IMPLEMENT > Hash, and made this change in Ruby 1.9, which has been backported to Ruby > 1.8.7. Hashes aren’t ordered in 1.8.7, though. 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, 4:03pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/142 "2009-02-13T16:03:11Z")
On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 4:53 AM, William J. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > incompatibility. > > No, it’s not a gray area. Anyone who has a basic understanding of > hash-tables doesn’t even think about the iteration order. Let me try to calm the waters on this particular part of the conversation. A couple of years ago, there was a long discussion here, when some, led by Hal F. IIRC, advocated defining the order for enumerating Ruby hashes. At that time, I argued vehemently to your point that hash tables are inherently unordered, and therefore it was inconceivable to order them. I was wrong. First, although Ruby Hash is implemented using a hash table, they aren’t hash tables, they are Ruby objects which for better or worse are named simply Hash. Perhaps if they had been named something like Dictionary, or Map, a name which doesn’t betray the implementation, this all would have been less controversial. Sometime after that discussion, Matz, who I know has much more than a basic understanding of hash-tables, decided that, yes, defining the iteration order of Ruby hashes to be by insertion order, and that this was easily done with minimal impact to performance/space requirements by linking buckets in the internal hash table used to IMPLEMENT Hash, and made this change in Ruby 1.9, which has been backported to Ruby 1.8.7. And as for whether or not changing something which was previously undefined to something which is defined introduces a backwards compatibility issue, I think it’s pretty clear that it does not. – 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 13, 2009, 4:31pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/143 "2009-02-13T16:31:27Z")
On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 10:24 PM, Urabe S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Alex F. wrote: > > > > 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) > > This is not our fault. Please hold on and think yourself. GC is running means > ruby interpreter is running out of memory. It is as clear as day that object > allocation during GC is not doable, because we do not have any memory space. GC is running may mean the interpreter is running out of memory, it may mean some code just called GC.start for some other 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 13, 2009, 4:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/144 "2009-02-13T16:35:03Z")
Hi – On Sat, 14 Feb 2009, James C. wrote: > > > that this was easily done with minimal impact to performance/space > > > order _does not work_. Actually let me be more specific. My code was relying > > > on keys being inserted in the order they appear in a hash literal, and on > > > subsequent iteration occuring in the same order. That doesn’t happen in any 1.8 version, though. (Sorry; I feel like something’s going right past me, and I’ll stop after this iteration 🙂 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, 4:30pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/145 "2009-02-13T16:30:51Z")
2009/2/13 David A. Black [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) > > IMPLEMENT > > Hash, and made this change in Ruby 1.9, which has been backported to Ruby > > 1.8.7. > > Hashes aren’t ordered in 1.8.7, though. Seconded – 1.8.7 is precisely where my code that was relying on insertion order _does not work_. Actually let me be more specific. My code was relying on keys being inserted in the order they appear in a hash literal, and on subsequent iteration occuring in the same order. My own code was maintaining key order explicitly using an array of keys ( [packr/lib/packr/collection.rb at 3.1 · jcoglan/packr · GitHub](http://github.com/jcoglan/packr/blob/3.1/lib/packr/collection.rb)), but when using a hash literal to initialize an instance, the keys are not inserted in literal appearance order in 1.8.7. So it may be that 1.8.7 does use insertion order for iteration, but does not use literal appearance order when creating a new hash. ---
**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, 4:52pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/146 "2009-02-13T16:52:07Z")
In article [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid), James C. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) writes: > Regardless of whether they’re _supposed_ to, the Rubies I’ve used before > 1.8.7 actually do iterate in insertion order. Could be machine/OS specific, > a fluke, whatever. The point is that 1.8.7 definitely does not iterate in > the order that keys appear in a literal, at least on my machine. If this is > supposed to now be defined behaviour I’ll investigate further and file a bug > if necessary. Would you show us an example which the insertion order is preserved on 1.8.6 and not preserved on 1.8.7? I tested as follows. The order is changed since 1.9. 1.8.7 is same as 1.8.6 and older. % all-ruby -e ‘h = {2=\>“b”, 1=\>“a”}; p h’ ruby-1.4.6(2000-08-16) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.6.0(2000-09-19) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.6.1(2000-09-27) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.6.2(2000-12-25) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.6.3(2001-03-19) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.6.4(2001-06-04) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.6.5(2001-09-19) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.6.6(2001-12-26) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.6.7(2002-03-01) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.6.8(2002-12-24) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.8.0(2003-08-04) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.8.1(2003-12-25) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.8.2(2004-12-25) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.8.3(2005-09-21) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.8.4(2005-12-24) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.8.5(2006-08-25) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.8.5p52(2007-06-07) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.8.5p113(2007-09-23) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.8.5p115(2008-03-03) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.8.5p231(2008-06-20) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.8.5head(2008-06-20p231) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.8.6p0(2007-03-13) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.8.6p36(2007-06-07) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.8.6p110(2007-09-23) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.8.6p111(2007-09-24) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.8.6p114(2008-03-03) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.8.6p230(2008-06-20) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.8.6p287(2008-08-11) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.8.6head(2009-02-13p330) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.8.7p0(2008-05-31) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.8.7p17(2008-06-09) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.8.7p22(2008-06-20) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.8.7p72(2008-08-11) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.8.7head(2009-02-13p116) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.8(2009-02-05r22080) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} ruby-1.9.1p0(2009-01-30r21907) {2=\>“b”, 1=\>“a”} ruby-1.9(2009-02-11r22240) {2=\>“b”, 1=\>“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 13, 2009, 4:43pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/147 "2009-02-13T16:43:53Z")
> something’s going right past me, and I’ll stop after this iteration > 🙂 Regardless of whether they’re _supposed_ to, the Rubies I’ve used before 1.8.7 actually do iterate in insertion order. Could be machine/OS specific, a fluke, whatever. The point is that 1.8.7 definitely does not iterate in the order that keys appear in a literal, at least on my machine. If this is supposed to now be defined behaviour I’ll investigate further and file a bug if necessary. ---
**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, 5:01pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/148 "2009-02-13T17:01:00Z")
2009/2/13 James C. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid): > > something’s going right past me, and I’ll stop after this iteration > > 🙂 > > Regardless of whether they’re _supposed_ to, the Rubies I’ve used before > 1.8.7 actually do iterate in insertion order. NO THEY DO NOT. It is the nature of a regular hashtable that the order of entries in its internal data structures depends only on the hash function and its inputs. It doesn’t know anything about the order of entries in your hash literal. I’ve shown you examples using Ruby _1.8.6_ that clearly demonstrate that it gives a \*\*\*\* about order of appearance in a literal, or insertion order. 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 13, 2009, 5:09pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/149 "2009-02-13T17:09:15Z")
Hi – On Sat, 14 Feb 2009, James C. wrote: > > something’s going right past me, and I’ll stop after this iteration > > 🙂 > > Regardless of whether they’re _supposed_ to, the Rubies I’ve used before > 1.8.7 actually do iterate in insertion order. Could be machine/OS specific, > a fluke, whatever. The point is that 1.8.7 definitely does not iterate in > the order that keys appear in a literal, at least on my machine. If this is > supposed to now be defined behaviour I’ll investigate further and file a bug > if necessary. I think it probably is machine-dependent, or something like that. I’ve never heard of hash order being anything but “not guaranteed” before 1.9 – except that if you iterate twice, I believe it definitely happens in the same order both times (though I’m not 100% sure that that’s actually specified or guaranteed either). 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, 5:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/150 "2009-02-13T17:19:15Z")
Hi Matz, I’m glad to see that you’ve entered this fray. I trust that you know me well enough to know, that while I have strong opinions, I have no ill-will, particularly to you or your language. On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 3:10 AM, Yukihiro M. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)wrote: > as I understand, they both contain bugs that haven’t disclosed for > 1.8.6 by accident. > > I consider them minor and not being worse than previous releases. > Most of them are addressed already. Am I missing something? First, the next comment is directed to a subset of the Ruby community, which doesn’t include you Matz, I know that Rails isn’t liked by everyone in the Ruby community, but for better or worse, it’s an important factor to the health of a significant portion of ‘our’ community. Those who don’t use Rails or other large Ruby frameworks over time haven’t experienced how we got to the point where these problems have been addressed. At this point, it’s a little hard to recover the history, but, although Rails 2.2 is now compatible with Ruby 1.8.7 it has taken work, and new releases, from both the Ruby team and the Rails team. Rails users faced with upgrades, need to deal with the evolution of both Ruby and Rails. To a large extent Rails over the last year to 18 months has been even more volatile than Ruby. Porting a Rails app from Rails 1.2.x to Rails 2.0 (There was no Rails 1.3) was, as the change in major version number indicates a fairly significant jump. And Rails made changes in Rails 2.2 which, for applications doing certain complex things with ActiveRecord, VERY difficult to port. That’s not Ruby’s fault, it’s just a fact of life. So there are quite a few Rails Apps, which need to stay on a version of Rails which is compatible with Ruby 1.8.6, but won’t work with Ruby 1.8.7. |Back then nobody stepped up and said that if code working on 1.8.6 > |broke it is a bug so I just left it at that - the compatibility seemed > |to be not so great. Of course, none of us is perfect, particularly without the benefit of hindsight. As a practitioner and advocate of agile techniques, I like to have a comprehensive test suite to expose compatibility issues when changes are made. Unfortunately in the case of a language like Ruby, it’s impossible to have such a test suite, It would need to draw from a significant portion of the applications implemented in Ruby, and applications implemented on frameworks like Rails which are implemented on Ruby, etc. etc. Not really practical. If compatibility of 1.8.7 is really “not so great”: > - if it is fixable, we can fix. > > - if it is minor, we can upgrade 1.8.7 (or later) whenever we want, > as we did in the past. > > - if upgrading is not affordable for enterprisey people (yes, I > understand them; upgrading is costly even when incompatibility is > minor), I’m not sure who you are calling enterprisey people here. I know that you have no intent to disparage, but that term does carry a certain meaning of “the other guys” with some of the Rubyists, (and others) I run into. To me “enterprisey” means someone working in a large corporate enterprise, who is following strategies, architectures and standards, promulgated by enterprise vendors, like Microsoft, and IBM (to the extent IBM still has the influence to do this), probably because of edicts handed down from on high from the executives who play golf with sales reps from those vendors. I’m pretty sure that such “enterprisey” types make up a very small subset of the Ruby/Rails community. We don’t have many sales reps who play golf with corporate executives. The vast majority of those using Rails are fairly small companies trying to leverage the almost unique advantages of Ruby and Rails to be able to quickly deploy into production, and incrementally improve core business applications. And the vast majority of Rails developers are either working for those small companies, or for a small Rails consultancy, or as independent freelance contractors. > they can keep using 1.8.6, which is maintained right now. Very true, I’ve got no argument with that, but it’s important to understand that those who are using packaged distributions of Ruby from debian (including Ubuntu), RedHat, macports etc. have more trouble keeping 1.8.6 because normal system administration has a nasty tendency to replace 1.8.6 with 1.8.x where x \> 6 because they don’t differentiate versions with differences in teeny version numbers as backwards incompatible. While 1.8.7 is backwards compatible with 1.8.6 in theory. Whether or not it really is, depends on whether or not all of the ancillary ruby code on the particular system, like Rails, Gems, and local applications have been kept, or brought up to date. Savvy developers get around this by eschewing packaged versions and installing the components of the Rails stack, including Ruby, from source. But there are a lot of developers who trust the package maintainers, and run into these issues, and end up blaming Ruby. We could say “well that’s their problem,” if we don’t care about the impact on the overall perception of Ruby. Perhaps that’s the right attitude, but I’m not so sure. Would it have been better for those with these problems had Ruby 1.8.7 not included the changes from 1.9 which broke apps and frameworks? I think that the answer is clearly yes. But, for better or worse, it did, and we have to live with the consequences, that doesn’t mean we need to be happy about it. As EngineYard raised their hands, the maintenance of 1.8.6 will be > kept, even after 1.8.8. If more evidence of great incompatibility is not shown, I will > consider it FUD, or FUD-like at most, even though I see no bad > intention from anyone. I hope that this doesn’t come across as FUD, or even FUD-like, I’m just trying to put a bit more context on why compatibility isn’t a black or white thing, and the sources of real FUD. The real FUD doesn’t come from discussions like this, it comes from those who either have run into these problems and blame Ruby. We have no control over what they say, we can only try to consider the effects of decisions on the broader community, within the bounds of our human lack of complete knowledge. – 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 13, 2009, 5:22pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/151 "2009-02-13T17:22:46Z")
On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 10:14 AM, David A. Black [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > IMPLEMENT > > Hash, and made this change in Ruby 1.9, which has been backported to Ruby > > 1.8.7. > > Hashes aren’t ordered in 1.8.7, though. Which makes this part of the thread rather moot, doesn’t it?! ## Thanks for pointing that out. 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 13, 2009, 5:27pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/152 "2009-02-13T17:27:29Z")
On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 10:06 AM, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)wrote: > Someone suggested having 1.8.8 being 1.8.6 syntax and semantics with > only bug fixes, security fixes and efficiency enhancements. That appeals > to me … that way, “1.8.7” is a development release and “1.8.8” is > stable. Bad idea, IMHO. This would mean that Ruby 1.8.8, would be backwards compatible with Ruby 1.8.6, but NOT with Ruby 1.8.7, which might be good for needing to say with the Ruby 1.8.6 definition, but not those who are already using Ruby 1.8.7. – 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 13, 2009, 5:32pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/153 "2009-02-13T17:32:47Z")
Hi – On Sat, 14 Feb 2009, James C. wrote: > I’m really not up for a slanging match so let me just say that, in code I’ve > written, Ruby \< 1.8.7 has demonstrated the behaviour I described. This may > be a fluke or a bug, in which case I will investigate further and file bugs > if necessary. It’s not a bug; there was never any defined order behavior, so no behavior is either right or wrong. 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, 5:51pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/154 "2009-02-13T17:51:35Z")
+1 for the main question, but… On Feb 11, 9:15 pm, Charles Oliver N. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > 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, … I also agree about this. Perhaps it isn’t too late to rename “1.9.1.0.0.1” to “2.0.0.0.1” ?? Also is it possible to make some “ruby20.rb” package wich emulate some features of 1.9 present in 1.8.7? Then in ruby-1.8.8 which would be 1.8.6 like but would allow us to write: require ‘ruby20’ Then all sugar features that are present in ruby 1.8.7 would be enable! Perhaps this package could even be required from a 1.8.6 ruby version?? – Maurice P.S. +1 for the original question 😉 ---
**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, 5:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/155 "2009-02-13T17:54:34Z")
On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 11:07 AM, David A. Black [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > if necessary. > > I think it probably is machine-dependent, or something like that. I’ve > never heard of hash order being anything but “not guaranteed” before > 1.9 – except that if you iterate twice, I believe it definitely > happens in the same order both times (though I’m not 100% sure that > that’s actually specified or guaranteed either). No, it’s in the absence of key collisions, it’s really determined by the hash values of the keys, The iteration is over the hash buckets and hash buckets marked as empty are skipped. Consider your examples which I’ve excerpted: % all-ruby -e ‘h = {2=\>“b”, 1=\>“a”}; p h’ … ruby-1.8.6head(2009-02-13p330) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} … ruby-1.8.7head(2009-02-13p116) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} … ruby-1.9.1p0(2009-01-30r21907) {2=\>“b”, 1=\>“a”} Note that for Ruby 1.8.6 and 1.8.7, the iteration order is by the sort order of the keys. But that’s just a side-effect of the hash of a fixnum being just the internal immediate representation which happens to be n\*2 + 1 for a Fixnum n: irb(main):001:0\> 1.hash =\> 3 irb(main):002:0\> 2.hash =\> 5 Had you used what is arguably the more natural order in the literal, i.e. {1 =\> “a”, 2 =\> “b”} it would appear as if iteration was by insertion order, but that’s just an accidental artifact. ## I suspect that those who observed that Ruby 1.8.7 ‘preserves’ insertion order are looking at specific artificial cases like this. 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 13, 2009, 5:28pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/156 "2009-02-13T17:28:39Z")
> demonstrate that it gives a \*\*\*\* about order of appearance > in a literal, or insertion order. I’m really not up for a slanging match so let me just say that, in code I’ve written, Ruby \< 1.8.7 has demonstrated the behaviour I described. This may be a fluke or a bug, in which case I will investigate further and file bugs if necessary. What I do know is that I’ve had code in a library released over 2 years ago and used by a fair number of people relying on this behaviour and heard no complaints until 1.8.7 arrived. I realise that hashtables are not ordered in 1.8 and have since made my code more robust. I’m not questioning your examples – you can but experiment to see what works – and I will try to extract the code from my project that demonstrates my point when I have some time. I’m not the least bit interested in who’s right or wrong or in berating the Ruby code devs or indeed anyone else, and was hoping for a productive discussion, not people repeatedly asserting that I don’t know how a hash table works and trying to shut me up. When I’ve time I’ll see if what I have is a Ruby bug or something else. Until then I’m canning this conversation. ---
**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, 5:59pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/157 "2009-02-13T17:59:52Z")
On Feb 13, 2009, at 9:06 AM, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote: > BTW, Perl had no trouble going from 5.8.x to 5.10.x, and I understand > there is a 5.12.x coming. So I don’t see a problem with Ruby doing > similar things in the third digit. 1.8.10 works for me, as does > 1.9.10. 🙂 > > “1.8.9” \< “1.8.10” > > =\> false 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 13, 2009, 5:55pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/158 "2009-02-13T17:55:46Z")
On Feb 13, 2009, at 3:53 AM, William J. wrote: > > incompatibility. > > No, it’s not a gray area. Anyone who has a basic understanding of > hash-tables doesn’t even think about the iteration order. I guess you haven’t used Ruby 1.9. 🙂 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 13, 2009, 6:16pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/159 "2009-02-13T18:16:27Z")
Hi – On Sat, 14 Feb 2009, Rick DeNatale wrote: > > > supposed to now be defined behaviour I’ll investigate further and file a > > ruby-1.8.7head(2009-02-13p116) {1=\>“a”, 2=\>“b”} > irb(main):002:0\> 2.hash > =\> 5 > > Had you used what is arguably the more natural order in the literal, i.e. {1 > =\> “a”, 2 =\> “b”} it would appear as if iteration was by insertion order, > but that’s just an accidental artifact. That’s why I didn’t 🙂 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, 6:23pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090/160 "2009-02-13T18:23:33Z")
On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 8:11 AM, Rick DeNatale [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > I’m pretty sure that such “enterprisey” types make up a very small subset of > the Ruby/Rails community. We don’t have many sales reps who play golf with > corporate executives. I saw a (fairly boring) panel discussion on “The Future of Enterprise Software” by some of these “enterprisey” folks last night, including the President of Oracle, who gave the keynote address. Yes, there is a _big_ difference between the 5-million ton gorilla Oracle (did you know there are five million Oracle developers, all connected by Oracle software?) and a typical Rails development team. > Very true, I’ve got no argument with that, but it’s important to understand > that those who are using packaged distributions of Ruby from debian > (including Ubuntu), RedHat, macports etc. have more trouble keeping 1.8.6 > because normal system administration has a nasty tendency to replace 1.8.6 > with 1.8.x where x \> 6 because they don’t differentiate versions with > differences in teeny version numbers as backwards incompatible. While 1.8.7 > is backwards compatible with 1.8.6 in theory. Whether or not it really is, > depends on whether or not all of the ancillary ruby code on the particular > system, like Rails, Gems, and local applications have been kept, or brought > up to date. It’s not just the users … the _packagers_ need to be in the loop too. There are two main package formats – Debian/Ubuntu and RPM (Red Hat / SuSE / Mandriva). And there are three major “community” Linux distros as well as a few “Corporate” Linux entities. Sure, there are differences in the details of how a Linux distro is packaged and administered, but the tasks, issues and use cases are the same: first of all it has to _work_, security holes need to be fixed ASAP, preferably _before_ exploits appear in the wild, and capacity planning tools need to exist so that a supplier can be sure his service level agreements are being met. The distinction here is not one of scale – Oracle vs. a “typical Rails app”. The distinction is between a production, deployed IT environment and a chaotic, risky experimental venture. I think we have to start thinking in terms of weeding out some of the chaos. For example, I would expect openSUSE, Fedora and Ubuntu to be all shipping a Ruby with _identical_ syntax and semantics. I would expect them all to be shipping a Rails with _identical_ behavior. I would expect to be able to walk up to a Ubuntu, openSUSE or Fedora server console and type a _distro_ install command to bring in any Gem, _not_ “sudo gem install ” because _some_ gems are in the package repository but others aren’t. In short, I would expect that there would be _one_ Ruby and _one_ Rails, differing only in whether I said “sudo apt-get install rails”, “sudo zypper install rails”, or “sudo yum install rails”. It should _just work_. ## This requires communication. This requires “marketing”. This requires the kind of discussion we are having in this thread within the Ruby community, but it also requires communication between the Ruby / Rails communities and the distros. I haven’t done much in terms of syncing up with the openSUSE community on Ruby, but I did get a sense of the frustration with Ruby in the Gentoo community when I was a Gentoo user. M. Edward (Ed) Borasky I’ve never met a happy clam. In fact, most of them were pretty steamed. [Previous page](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090.md?page=7) [Next page](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-you-are-unhappy-with-the-direction-of-ruby-1-8-7-respond/160090.md?page=9)