From: darren <rubylang@...>
Date: 2004-12-29T13:00:40+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby Philosophy

On Tuesday 28 December 2004 4:52 am, Ralf M�ller wrote:
> Am Dienstag, 28. Dezember 2004 09:02 schrieb Darren Crotchett:

[ . . . snip . . . ]

> > Also, is the Ruby community experiencing a lot of growth or what?
>
> You're mixing different things:
> 1. for Smalltalk, you mentioned stagnation of the community: a fact, true
> or false (or at least you're not satisfied)
> 2. for python,  the popularity is good, but you get a bit annoyed, typing
> strange  commands: your feeling, and i know that, too.
> 3. for ruby: you're feeling, that it's quite near to smalltalk, so why not
> smalltalk: Well:

Most of the replies seemed to focus on the very last question (about the 
community's growth).  Now, I wish I hadn't asked that.  I don't think it's a 
bad thing to be heavily influenced by a Smalltalk.  I just figured that the 
developers had some annoyances with several languages (including ST) and felt 
they could do a better job.  I was trying to figure out A) if that was the 
case.  B) how they improved it.

I have only programmed in Cincom's Smalltalk.  I know there are other versions 
(like GNU/Smalltalk and Squeak).  One of the problems that I ran into was 
that I couldn't always tell if I was programming in "Smalltalk" or "Cincom 
Smalltalk".  I didn't care for that.  I didn't want to get hooked on a 
proprietary way of doing things.  So, I always wanted to know "is this 
Smalltalk?" or "is this Cincom?".  If I wanted proprietary, I would probably 
be using C#.

>
> Because, you posted that message?

huh ??? 

>
> to 1.: This list IS active and VERY helpfull (BTW: thanks a lot). so, if
> this is the only point, forget smalltalk. But it's not, isn't it?
> to 2.: ruby has such a nice grammar, that i believe, you could write poems
> with it. I made the experience, that commands can be typed as I think they
> can.
> to 3.: Your gave the answer yourself: you're unhappy with it.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say.  

>
> I think, you have to try ruby within something the other langs become odd.
> Anyway, there is no way of telling you the advantages and disadvantages. It
> seems to be something you feel.

I can understand that.  I knew my question would be difficult to answer.  As I 
posted to someone else, I was sort of expecting someone to say that the 
developers were heavily influenced by other languages but felt there were 
certain things that needed to be fixed.  So, they did.  I might not even be 
in the ballpark on that thought.  But, I was thinking that if I was, someone 
could explain to me what.

> This is not meant to be arrogant or slt. What you feel, is important,
> because any language has an inner logic; and this logic should be your
> friend.
>
> I tried C++, had a small Java-Project and felt that these langs do not fit
> to my mind. Then i tried Perl and guess what...., Then I thougth Python
> would be the best choice, but after a while i became disappointed whit it.

I'm not going to just drink the Python kool-aid.  I picked up a book on it 
awhile back and have been trying to read up on it between semesters.  I 
haven't really done anything with it, though.  After taking a semester of 
Smalltalk, I started seeing that Python was bending in ways to be OO.  So, I 
can see where you are coming from with this comment.

>
> unfortunately my employer wants me to use bash, perl and php.
> So, there is now way of using ruby in big projects. Therewith other members
> of this list will be more helpfull.
> But for all the tiny things, that'd waste hours and hours, I use ruby and
> get them done in a few minutes (logfile analysis, code analysis, database
> manipulation).

Darren