From: ChrisO <ceo@...>
Date: 2004-09-16T09:22:41+09:00
Subject: Re: Ex-Perl coders: Howz it feel to convert to Ruby?

Brian Wisti wrote:

> What's the payoff using Ruby instead of Perl? For me, the end result is
> stress reduction. It takes roughly the same amount of effort to create
> a small program in the two languages, but progressively less effort to
> create Ruby applications as the size and scope of the app increases.
> The Principle of Least Surprise means that most things are done like
> you would expect them to be (or at least like Matz expects them to be,
> which is still more consistent than most languages out there).
> 
> It is nice to have legible code, too. I know that "legible" is entirely
> subjective, and you don't have to agree with it if you don't want to.
> You can make clean code in Perl, but it takes a little more work and a
> lot more discipline. Plus, all of the "my/local/our" stuff and shifting
> subroutine arguments and list context vs. scalar context (and, and,
> ..) in Perl starts to look more than a little extraneous, interfering
> with your reading of the actual code logic. Since Ruby doesn't use any
> of that stuff, it's easier for me to see the meat of the code.
> 

I'm seeing this claim more and more and I'm starting to get sold.  Where 
there's smoke, there's fire.  Multiple people can't be saying this sort 
of thing for no reason.

-ceo