From: Jamis Buck <jgb3@...>
Date: 2004-10-10T23:42:11+09:00
Subject: Re: ANN: Free-form-operators patch

David A. Black wrote:

>>Even so, I'm a nice guy. I feel for you. But you can't say I haven't tried 
>>--I've pushed for a separate mailing list for this stuff for, lord knows, how 
>>long now?
> 
> 
> OK... but maybe that means there's no interest in it...?  

David, that's a little harsh. Tom has pushed his suby-muse list in a 
very non-aggressive way, trying to get interested readers to the list. 
(It's a great list, BTW. Low volume due to low membership right now, but 
the discussions have included fascinating dissertations on AOP and 
prototype-based languages. Great stuff.) People are obviously interested 
in discussing changes to the Ruby language itself (witness this thread).

Part of the problem is--people want their ideas _heard_. And because of 
suby-muse's low volume, it is not a tempting target for many amateur 
language designers. So they post on ruby-talk and a flame-war ensues. :(

Personally, I'm something of a fence-sitter in the current issue. I like 
the operators patch--goodness knows there have been times I've wanted to 
override operators in Ruby--but I've always found an acceptible (if not 
perfect) workaround. So obviously, Ruby as it is now is "sufficient."

However, I think there is very little need to worry about Ruby becoming 
a "syntactic soup" as someone mentioned earlier. First of all, NONE of 
us have any real say in what goes into or stays out of Ruby. If matz 
likes an idea, he'll uses it. If he doesn't, he won't. Naturally, he 
listens to the community, but I don't think there is much risk of him 
allowing Ruby to become a "do everything, be everything" language (if 
there even is such a thing). (Forgive me, matz, if I've put too many 
words in your mouth here...)

So, my recommendation is for everyone to let good enough alone. I think 
everyone with a strong opinion on the subject has stated their opinions, 
and it looks like the mudslinging is about to start. And when that 
starts, its as good of a place to stop the discussion as any. If there 
is disagreement about the value of patches to the Ruby interpreter, 
let's all just agree to disagree, please.

- Jamis

-- 
Jamis Buck
jgb3@email.byu.edu
http://www.jamisbuck.org/jamis