Should Wikipedia's software be rewritten in Ruby on Rails? Options Rating

[LamontStormstar]

Should Wikipedia's software be rewritten in Ruby on Rails? Discuss.

[Lar]

Should Wikipedia's software be rewritten in Ruby on Rails? Discuss.

I've never used RoR and I'm but a dabbler in PHP so this ain't worth much.

What I hear is that RoR is very very nifty, and PHP not exactly as nifty. So maybe if one was starting over...

But the question becomes why would this be a good idea? There is a vast sunk cost (which is never a reason not to do something, that's why it is called "sunk" cost) but any rewrite has to get to be at least as good as the current implementation, or it's just a science project. Which can be fun....

I seem to recall Kelly M was working on a Java reimplementation, for fun.

But I tell my clients not to replace perfectly good COBOL programs (!!!), if they're working fine, just for the sake of replacing them. SO I'm biased in favour of things that already exist.

Interesting question though.

[Milton Roe]

But I tell my clients not to replace perfectly good COBOL programs (!!!), if they're working fine, just for the sake of replacing them. SO I'm biased in favour of things that already exist.

Programmer becomes depressed because so many of his buisness clients insist that he upgrade their COBOL programs and it's so ugly and clunky that he finally can't stand it. He commits suicide. His relatives, out of guilt, have him cryogenically preserved.

In the far future he wakes up and it's a combination of Futurama and Buck Rogers. The cyborg-humans debrief him.

"Well, you'll find this funny," he says, "But I was a programmer. I actually used to work with computers back when you could see them. They were boxes and stuff that sat on desks."

Moment of shock, and then look of greed on the faces of the defrosters:

"Say.... you wouldn't happen to know any COBOL...?"

This post has been edited by Milton Roe: