From: James Britt <jamesUNDERBARb@...>
Date: 2004-11-19T01:27:16+09:00
Subject: Re: The Poetry of Code

Francis Hwang wrote:
...
> I won't speak for him, but I think it's a fairly widespread opinion. My 
> guess as to why is that people automatically think programming has to be 
> difficult (i.e. lots of static typing, necessity of expensive IDEs, 
> etc.) in order to be effective. Rubyists come along with their talk of 
> enjoying their work and serious Javaists think to themselves "That's 
> nice, but there's no way that would work at my serious company doing my 
> serious thing."

Agreed.  And I think it's the "scripting language" ghetto, and ignorance 
about dynamic typing (which, in it's worst form, equates it with weak 
typing), that keeps many people from appreciating Ruby (and other agile 
languages as well).

Educating people on dynamic typing is important, but I think I'd be 
happier if people would simply stop referring to Ruby as a "scripting" 
language (too many pejorative connotations, right or wrong), and simply 
described it as an *interpreted* language instead.

James