From: wys@... (Clemens Wyss)
Date: 2001-03-05T16:40:02+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:11997] Re: Not Ruby, for me, for the moment at least

"Michael Kreuzer" <mkreuzer(nospam)@mail.usyd.edu.au> wrote in
<97s87k$ndn$1@spacebar.ucc.usyd.edu.au>: 

>I wrote on this newsgroup last weekend about how I was considering using
>Ruby as a scripting language.  

Michael, what do you intend to do? I.e. what is the domain of your
project? 

>
>The six languages I considered were Javascript, Lua, Perl, Python, Ruby
>& Scheme (various flavours of Scheme).
>

IMHO JavaScript doesn't fit here. Shouldn't it be JSP in conjunction with
an application server? 

>
>(2) Javascript (in the form of Spider monkey) and Python compiled
>straight out of the box for 1 point each, Lua could be made to compile
>with a lot of work & the others remained inscrutable. Their Unix support
>I'm sure is fine, but their Windows work is perfunctory.  Zero for all
>of those. 

Under cygwin (with gcc and all the other goodies) I have no problem
compiling Ruby from the cvs-sources. autoconf
configure
make
make test
make install
Thats it!
On the other hand I would double the fact that as there is a
straight-forward-installer available from the "pragmatic programmers",
why not use it? 

>Python it is.  

Python definitely is a good choice, but as of this writing the only
reasons for choosing Python over Ruby are (IMHO): - CORBA-binding(s)?
OmniOrbPy, fnorb. - better Win32(API) support? Thanks to Mark Hammond
- PythonWin? IDE with syntax higlightning and (visual-)debugger.
- speed?
But as you didn't mention any of these as a requirements for your project
I (and possibly others too)  don't see why you have made this decision. 

>Ruby needed very little start up time invested in
>learning the language, 

This definitely speaks for Ruby's conciseness, doesn't it?

>but there's an enormous amount of time that's
>needed to translate the Unix source to Windows & that's time I don't
>have. 
Again, what do you mean by "translate".

Unless you absolutely need one (or several) of the requirements mentioned
above, I would recommend re-thinking and re-evaluating. 
Regards
Clemens