On Thu, Apr 30, 2020 at 1:14 PM Patricia Shanahan <p...@acm.org> wrote: > > After a few days attending to other things, it is time for me to get > back to learning Whimsy. > > I can go in either of two directions, Ruby or node.js. Each involves > getting fluent in a programming language in which I've only written tiny > programs, as well as learning my way around Whimsy. Neither language > looks particularly difficult, except perhaps for understanding "this" in > JavaScript's object and class model. > > If all of Whimsy gets converted soon to node.js, time spent learning > Ruby would be wasted, and I should go for node.js. On the other hand, if > substantial portions of Whimsy remain in Ruby learning it will > contribute to the bus factor for those parts of Ruby. > > Opinions? Any other considerations?
If what you want to work on is forms and reports (i.e., things that HTML is good at) and NOT on the board agenda app, the roster tool, and the secretary workbench, then the short term answer is Ruby. And that will either turn out to be the right long term answer, or there will be a well defined transition path. Even if all the tools end up in JavaScript, that isn't going to happen in weeks or even a small number of months, and your HTML skills and overall design will transfer over. Syntax wise, JavaScript has a lot in common with C, C++, Java, and C#, so you likely will pick up the syntax quickly. Semantically, JavaScript actually has a lot in common with Ruby and Python. If the above doesn't describe you, then one way or another, you will need to learn a substantial amount of JavaScript. That's either in addition to Ruby (and for that matter, you will need to learn the capabilities and limitation of the Ruby2JS[1] library I maintain), or it is instead of Ruby. > -- > This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. > https://www.avg.com - Sam Ruby [1] https://github.com/rubys/ruby2js
