I did not read DHH's post and think he was suggesting Mongrel was leaking. I see that DHH screwed up and said Mongrel (which they were using in production, just not on Basecamp) when he should have said FCGI. But Zed has taken an entire DHH post, zoomed in on one irrelevant error, and attempted to twist the entire discussion around it.
Let's settle it now:
* Mongrel wasn't leaking.
* DHH clearly appears to have misspoken.
* But DHH also clearly said the leaks were in his application code.
The rest of this post is just more-of-the-same drama from Zed.
This time, instead of bizarro rants about Ruby security, or the play-by-play of the crank calls he gets, we get to hear about how Mongrel destroyed his career and how Rails will destroy the Passenger team. I can't see how this stuff has any relevance to me, as a professional developer, at all. If you can't make time to contribute to open source projects without screwing up your career, don't do it.
True, it could have been an honest mistake. However, like I said in my comment above DHH starts off the post wondering aloud about Zed's state of mind and whether he needs help. Even if the Mongrel thing was a legitimate error the opening paragraph is an obvious cheap shot. Regardless of whether or not Zed just has an axe to grind here that kind of nonsense makes DHH look like a tool and a half if you ask me.
Zed may very well be paranoid, hyper-aggressive and caustic. However, you can be paranoid and on to something. The subtle forms of aggression that Zed accuses the Rails core of perpetuating are difficult to provide concrete examples for, and it seems as though he has done just in this case.. we will see how it plays out. It impacts me as a developer because this potentially diminishes DHH's credibility in my eyes, and as the Rails BDFL, this has the potential to impact how I approach the platform I use to make a living.
It impacts me as a developer because this potentially diminishes DHH's credibility in my eyes, and as the Rails BDFL, this has the potential to impact how I approach the platform I use to make a living.
Well, all the code is available, right? You should base your decisions on the design and implementation of Rails, not on one of the author's blog. This is a really scary pattern emerging that I've noticed. It seems like people want to base their infrastructure decisions on things that don't matter. "Well, I would use $foo, but the website doesn't look very nice." "$foo seems nice, but the main author can be mean." If this is how you make IT decisions, I pity you.
(A while back, someone posted to my blog a comment that read, "Because you were so mean on CPAN Ratings, I've suggested to my clients that they use PHP instead of Catalyst." That doesn't seem like a very sound way of evaluating infrastructure decisions, especially since I am not the author of Catalyst. If they want to make more work for themselves because they don't like me, all I can do is point and laugh. Clearly I'm mentally ill, though.)
"..all the code is available, right? You should base your decisions on the design and implementation of Rails, not on one of the author's blog."
I can stare at the code all I want and still be no closer to knowing how rails performs under load, or how much memory it leaks. That isn't just about the code, it's about behavioral interactions with the OS, level of traffic, other layers in the stack. To address those issues I could run a million performance evaluation experiments, or I could try to gauge how the community is doing, who's using it that is kinda in the same situation as me, and what issue's they're dealing with. And I refuse to believe you don't do the same.
He's not talking about what words DHH uses in a blog. He's talking about DHH's credibility in saying rails was production-ready. That is relevant to platform choices.
Open-source is largely a trust network. I don't mind if someone is an arrogant SOB, intolerant of n00b questions, or has an ugly website... IF I can trust their word about the code they produce, AND if they are still able to maintain an active community. There are implications about the long-term ecosystem regarding the particular project in question if the leadership falters too frequently or too severely, and the support network (community, business, labor, mindshare, et cetera) around a project is a vital aspect in making IT decisions. If you can't trust upstream providers to be clear and honest with respect to code, the future doesn't look so bright. While the proof is in the pudding, I have neither the time nor the inclination to thoroughly vet every change or release (this gets back to Open Source being a trust network.)
The blog post comment that you refer to seems to reflect a poor thought process. However, mine has a little more reasoning behind it.
It impacts me as a developer because this potentially diminishes DHH's credibility in my eyes, and as the Rails BDFL, this has the potential to impact how I approach the platform I use to make a living.
Don't let it.
Put it this way, I'm definitely no unconditional member of the DHH fan club, but his contributions to the Ruby world are streets ahead of Zed's. Whether you think Zed is great or not, none of that detracts from what DHH has done. DHH is pretty direct and a "good guy" (usually - Rails logo idiocy overlooked). DHH has not, in my experience, tended to be passive aggressive - though there are many in the Ruby and Rails pantheon who are.
I concur with tptacek's opinion above - all of his posts in this thread are on the money. On ZS's part, as interesting and amusing as these cries are, he's crying in a showman-esque way - just sit back and enjoy the show. (Don't believe me? Try: The one thing that pissed me off about the Mongrel project was how it destroyed my career path. -- Destroyed his career path? It was a semi-popular project for a minor language - get a grip.)
My qualifications to make these statements? Not as strong as those for some others, but I've been a Rails coder since 2004 and run the largest Ruby blog so I believe I've seen a lot of what's gone on.
I upmodded your post. DHH is an excellent marketer, and we all make honest mistakes -- I'd have to think long and hard about when I switched from SCGI to FCGI to Mongrel to Phusion myself. Zed is clearly inflammatory, which I think is a great detriment to the validity of some of the points he raises. Now that DHH has posted a clarification, he's maintained his credibility.
I've also gone back and re-read the original Zed rant and when he says "That’s a production application that can’t stay up for more than 4 minutes on average", it is clearly wrong (even according to the very conversation that he posted,) and he should issue the retraction, if he has not already.
If you think either DHH or Zed have a lot of credibility when it comes to subjective issues like "who's respecting who", you haven't carefully studied the record. I direct you to Zed's crazy-talk sum-up of Drew Yao's Ruby security findings:
Aaron, you weren't going to use Rails anyways; you develop on a competing web stack. Stepping into the middle of a DHH vs. Zed Shaw rant is not good evangelism.
Let's settle it now:
* Mongrel wasn't leaking.
* DHH clearly appears to have misspoken.
* But DHH also clearly said the leaks were in his application code.
The rest of this post is just more-of-the-same drama from Zed.
This time, instead of bizarro rants about Ruby security, or the play-by-play of the crank calls he gets, we get to hear about how Mongrel destroyed his career and how Rails will destroy the Passenger team. I can't see how this stuff has any relevance to me, as a professional developer, at all. If you can't make time to contribute to open source projects without screwing up your career, don't do it.