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by petercooper 5791 days ago
There's a big opportunity for the taking here for the right person with both .Net and Ruby experience and enough time on their hands. IronRuby might be a minor Ruby implementation but I suspect if it stays alive it could be a bigger deal in the .Net world and there could be a great consultancy business off the back of it, especially in skunkworks-type situations.
2 comments
euroclydon 5791 days ago
I had to look up "skunkworks." I was wondering if it was just work that stinks, like people don't want to do it, but have to for some reason.

Well, besides being a Lockheed Martin trademark, apparently it means research and innovation by a loosely coupled team. Are there great consulting opportunities in research and innovation?

I think I'm seeing a pattern here. The main IronPython project I'm familiar with is Resolver, a spreadsheet targeted at the financial world, and now this guy leaves the IronRuby team to work for a company that consults for hedge funds. What I don't get is, what the heck is so great about .NET for these financial people? Can't they just run their calculations using scripting languages that have been out for the last ten or twenty years? What do they need the CLR/DLR for?

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thibaut_barrere 5791 days ago
> what the heck is so great about .NET for these financial people ?

A couple of points based on my experience at least:

- UI components (such as DevExpress ones) for charts and grids, with fairly good performance

- easier interop with Excel/Word (yes, this is important!)

- ability to reuse legacy C++ (I did this personally, porting and wrapping code from Solaris to C# and .Net through managed C++)

- C# itself is a good language, and it's easier to find recruits compared to say Ruby or Python (at least here in France)

Where I've worked at least, almost nobody uses "scripting languages", it's all Java or C# or C++.

I firmly believe that keeping IronRuby and IronPython alive will serve a purpose for people working in these fields!

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rbanffy 5791 days ago
You do understand that when you build a company on something Microsoft is not doing, but that is adjacent to whatever they do, you risk being offered a ridiculous buyout offer, followed by a thorough carpet-nuking if they ever get interested in entering your business.

I saw that many times in the past. Microsoft is something you really want to stay away from.

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