---
date: "2003-11-19T17:18:15Z"
title: Why Ruby Sucks
---

<p>
Matz is awesome.  I'm looking over <a href='http://www.rubyist.net/~matz/slides/rc2003/'>the slides</a> for his <a href='http://www.rubyconf.org/'>RubyConf 2003</a> presentation, and the <a href='http://www.rubyist.net/~matz/slides/rc2003/mgp00003.html'>third slide</a> is titled "How Ruby Sucks."  The <a href='http://www.rubyist.net/~matz/slides/rc2003/mgp00004.html'>fourth slide</a> lists specific problems, and the rest of the presentation talks about what needs to be done.
</p>

<p>
His slides also talk about starting from scratch with Ruby2 (the language) and Rite (the <acronym title='Virtual Machine'>VM</acronym>).  I'm wary of the start from scratch by committee approach &mdash; Perl 6 and <abbr title='Enlightenment 0.17'>E17</abbr> are prime examples of how this approach can fail spectacularly.
</p>