Para aqueles que ainda cismam em tapar os olhos, tem mais Ruby no site com talvez os melhores artigos pop* de Java: ONJava.com: Ruby the Rival.
Este artigo é bem Beyond java: uma série de entrevistas individuais e compilações com gente importante, formadores de opinião.
A conclusão resume o texto:
Is Ruby about to sweep Java aside? Not even the loudest Ruby partisans are predicting such a thing. What we do see in our correspondents’ comments is the consistent idea that developers need, as Venners puts it, “the best tool for the job at hand.” Crucially, developers are responsible for understanding and using those tools correctly. It’s not hard to see the connection between Cooper’s memories of EJB 1.0 hype and Davidson’s prediction that “there are probably dozens of crap Ruby on Rails applications being written right now”–getting swept up in marketing can be dangerous, regardless of the technology. Nevertheless, people in the know who’ve tried Ruby are reporting significant productivity boosts, so there may be jobs for which it is indeed an ideal tool.
Update: Falando em OnJava, essa entrada dá acesso a links muito legais, meu predileto é o texto de Jack Herrington que além de ser uma história divertida tem um bom sumário para a situação atual:
This isn’t an all or nothing proposition. The two sides in the argument were never “Java or Anti-Java”. It was always “Java or The Right Tool For the Job”. Sometimes Java is the right tool for the job. And sometimes Perl is the right tool. A good engineer has a variety of tools in their toolkit and is always looking for new tools that can speed development. Lately folks like Bruce Tate and Martin Fowler, long time Java advocates, have been changing their tune, not to a particular technology, but to the “right tool for the right job”. I applaud that. This is where we should have been all along.
* eu prefiro os artigos do artima, mas lá eles já falam de Ruby, têm até uma revista…