The blog of New Bamboo, a UK web development agency, with posts on Ruby, Node.js, Go, and Matz joining Heroku.
HN links it for its Matz interview about joining Heroku, a browser full-text search write-up, and Node.js streaming examples.
'Marketing and bragging rights' sounds critical to me. In an interview[1][2], Matz describes it this way:
>> He [Mark Benioff, CEO of Salesforce] said he could provide us some support and that's why I decided to join Salesforce.com through Heroku (Note: Several members of Ruby Core are currently under negotiation to join Heroku).
>> So, the core of our work will not change. Our mission is to develop Ruby Core, to make Ruby more functional and higher quality. Having said that, I am expecting that the job security we are being provided and Ruby usage feedback we get from heavy Ruby users such as Heroku will accelerate the progress of Ruby development. Otherwise, there would be no point to accepting the offer.
The "support" there refers to a conversation between Benioff and Matz where Matz said a primary concern of his was for Ruby devs who either work on Ruby in their spare time or worry about job security. It sounds like Salesforce is committed to helping by hiring multiple Ruby-core devs. I think that's very real support, not just PR of any kind.
[1] http://blog.new-bamboo.co.uk/2011/7/12/translation-of-matz-q-a-article-after-joining-heroku
[2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2757134 (HN thread on the Matz interview (so far, no comments)
Create a non-English based programming language is very different from translating a english programming language. Different languages have different ways to express time, state, etc. If one translates a english programming language, it will be a translated English based programming language (not a Non-English base...)
I`m a native portuguese speaker, for example. In portuguese, we "break" the "to be" verb in two forms: The "ser" verb to denominate an immutable state like "The sun is hot" and a "estar" verb to denominate a transitory state "It is hot today".
My guess is that, if programming languages were made since the beginning with a language like that, the coding world would be a more pleasant place today. Things like differenciate mutable/immutable state would be much more natural.
So, it`s possible even to create a Non-English based programming language IN English. Russian, japanese, etc. languages have their peculiarities, that could shape coding very different than what it is today.
Ruby it`s a nice example of it. Just google about the subject, and found this material (http://blog.new-bamboo.co.uk/2010/12/17/learning-japanese-th...)
Any rubyist-japanese-speaker who would like to give some thoughts on the subject?
It's useful for streaming large data sets, such as audio or video files.
Here are some examples:
http://debuggable.com/posts/streaming-file-uploads-with-node-js:4ac094b2-b6c8-4a7f-bd07-28accbdd56cb
http://blog.new-bamboo.co.uk/2009/12/7/real-time-online-activity-monitor-example-with-node-js-and-websocket
http://blog.andregoncalves.com/post/1620276144/inaugural-twitter-streaming-with-node-js-and-html5
Interesting article, maybe a bit far-fetched towards the end. Correct link:
http://blog.new-bamboo.co.uk/2010/12/17/learning-japanese-the-rubyist-way
There's a detailed write up from the author about how it all works at: http://blog.new-bamboo.co.uk/2013/02/26/full-text-search-in-your-browser