From: "Ralf Müller" <r_mueller@...>
Date: 2004-12-29T17:26:40+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby Philosophy

Hi Darren,

Am Mittwoch, 29. Dezember 2004 05:00 schrieb darren:
> 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#.

That's why I avoid using an IDE: to many things in the background I don't know 
about. I'm want to be able to work even under the worst circumstances: Just 
an editor, the interpreter, no X. 
And i love the feeling to have everything under my 10 fingers. 

> > 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.
>

In your first message, you mixed the popularity of a language with your very 
own disappointment with it. I could not figure out, what precisely the 
problem was. But afterall you posted that message, and this shows, how big 
your dissatisfaction is. It seemed to me, that the lack of popularity is not 
your first problem according to smalltalk.

But: Maybe I'm guessing to much ... 

finaly: if Smaltalk feels 'natural' ot you, ruby will be your friend

best regards
ralf