Keeping projects small, code brevity
I know a number of you are interested in how Ruby and Rails seems to favor smaller projects, code brevity, and a general attitude of representational efficiency.
You might be interested in this new post by Ola Bini who discusses the claim that if a project is very big, you need all of the helps from a statically-typed language (such as Java).
http://olabini.com/blog/2009/10/plan-to-write-big-software-and-you-have-already-lost/
Categories: Ruby
I'm not sure what to make of Ola Bini's argument here. Yes, yes, bigger is always riskier (vide Frederick Brooks, Mythical Man-Month), but it's odd to assert that it's always avoidable. It's as if his advice were "Only undertake small projects or ones where existing libraries already do most of the work for you."
@Ken Busch
Good point. You should put a comment on his blog and question his "always" -- and tell us what he says, if anything.
Please shout at me if, in lecture, I make unbounded claims. I think my claims are usually in some context, usually an historical one [e.g., when I beat up on Java, I almost always mean the Java of 2000-2006 or so] or make comparisons with some evidence.