From: "Ara.T.Howard" <ahoward@...>
Date: 2004-07-03T03:22:48+09:00
Subject: Re: Why I don't use Ruby.

On Sat, 3 Jul 2004, Ben Giddings wrote:

> Take for example, 'len', it's not a property of Strings or Arrays, it's a
> function you apply to them to get their length.  Same goes for 'map', it's
> not a property of lists or arrays, it's just a function.

i happen to agree with you, but you are on a slippery slope i think:  one
could make the argument that

   open path

in ruby is not very OO.  it's simply a function you apply to strings to get
an fd for them.  of course, it happens to be pinned on Kernel (or Object - i
forget which) but this is really splitting hairs isn't it?  after all, whilst
one could easily make the argument that the method len used for determining
the length of strings, THE fundemental data structure according to all of
computer science, should belong in Object and that open should not.

popen3 is another fine example - very useful, not very OO.  i guess i view
ruby as very OO where it should be, and not very OO other places: take for
example the control of child processes, thier execution, input/output/errput,
status, communication, etc. - nothing OO about it.  i for one though, am glad
it isn't because i can use 'man' to navigate through much the non-OO stuff.
java tried pretty hard to force some non-OO things into OO boxes (more like
wet squashed bags) and it was terrible - remember the first time you tried to
read a file in java?  yuck.

in any case i always doubt the merit of saying ruby is more OO than 'x' and
therfore better.  i'll personally say that i can solve problems quicker and
more enjoyably in ruby that in any other lang i know - but that's just me.

kind regards.

-a
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