From: ptkwt@... (Phil Tomson) Date: 2004-09-16T03:09:52+09:00 Subject: Re: Ex-Perl coders: Howz it feel to convert to Ruby? In article , Chris wrote: >I didn't even think about asking this question until now, based on a >paragraph I wrote in another thread, so I thought I would ask... > >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. I don't think that the 'hit' is all that big. When I moved from Perl to Ruby (as a primary agile programming language; I still use C++ ) after about 3 days of Ruby coding I actually felt more comfortable and more productive in Ruby than I had in Perl (and I had been coding in Perl for six years, including OO Perl). I think that Ruby just 'hangs' together a lot better. You know all of the methods that will operate on a particular object of a certain class (or you can easily find out) and there were more methods available on builtin classes (for example, look at all of the methods available on Array objects and compare with functions available in Perl to operate on @list objects). > >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? > First off, I _was_ a big Perl fan, however I haven't used Perl for anything significant for about 3.5 years now. I've forgotten Perl such that anytime I look at Perl code these days it just makes my eyes hurt. So in my case, I made a very clean break from Perl. To answer your questions: Yes, it's worth the time especially since you can be productive in Ruby in a day or two. It doesn't take much time to get productive in Ruby coming from Perl. Sure you'll be coding Perl in Ruby for the first few months, but keep at it and you'll be learn The Ruby Way soon enough. The point is, you can be productive in Ruby in a short time - it may not be code you'll want to show off here on the list, but it'll get the job done. Yes, I definately feel that I've exceeded my Perl capabilities. Do OO Perl for a while and you'll really appreciate moving to Ruby. >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. Yes & no. You mention a mix of agile and static languages. Ruby OO is much nicer than OO Perl where everything is a do-it-yourself project. OO in an agile language like Ruby feels much different than in C++ or Java (you have much more freedom in Ruby). Phil