From: Bill Guindon <agorilla@...>
Date: 2004-09-16T01:48:17+09:00
Subject: Re: Ex-Perl coders: Howz it feel to convert to Ruby?

On Wed, 15 Sep 2004 23:54:51 +0900, Chris <ceo@nospan.on.net> wrote:

> I've had this long time infatuation with Ruby and as a fairly proficient
> Perl coder, have even recreated a few "Ruby things" in Perl over the
> last few years.  But a couple of "Wow!" factors in Ruby have kept me
> hanging around and I've finally decided that the only way is to ween
> myself off of Perl and just start using Ruby all the way.
> 
> This is hard because I can't afford a lot of downtime, which has been
> the biggest strike for me against using Ruby.  I'm fairly fast, tight,
> and concise at hitting targets using Perl and I don't want to loose that
> productivity using Ruby.  Still, it appears a "hit" has to be taken if I
> really want to learn it as well as I know Perl.

Personally, I don't see it as an either/or thing.  I'm learning Ruby
to speed up my coding in another language (Miva - yeah, I know. you've
never heard of it)

So far, my focus has been on building tools for code generation, file
parsing, etc.  I can't afford to switch languages, but I think I'll be
much better off with Ruby than without it.

> So the question for any hardcore Perl coders out there that have
> converted to Perl (or are fluent in both) is: Is it really worth the
> time?  Are the paybacks there?  And do you feel you've exceeded your
> capabilities in Perl using Ruby?

I'm hardly hardcore Perl, but I've done quite a bit of it in the past.
 If it was my core today, I'd continue to use it for it's speed,
compatibility with existing code, and to appease other dev's working
in the same environment.

I'd pull Ruby in to handle the grunt work, and to bring truth to the
"quick" in "I'll just write a quick script to do X".  Granted, it'll
be some time before that can happen, but I think the minimal syntax
helps for those "quick" needs.

I've started by letting it do my local work where speed/compatibility
isn't important, and I'm using it to generate large blocks of
consistent code in my core language.
 
> I perceive, from what I've read, that this could be the case.  I see all
> these "testimonials" that claim rapid development and this is inticing,
> yet at the same time, having done *some* Ruby coding, this is a little
> hard for me to believe because in my estimation, the paradigm in Ruby is
> entirely different than in just about any other procedural language and
> even from the OO aspects of Perl, C++ and Java.  To me, the difference
> between Ruby and just about anything else (common) is the same as when,
> in the development world, many of us made the leap from procedural to
> OO.  I think the gap between Ruby and most everything else is that big
> -- as well as the payoffs...?

One of the payoffs is the opportunity to think differently :)

-- 
Bill Guindon (aka aGorilla)