From: Paris Sinclair <paris@...>
Date: 2005-01-24T08:44:59+09:00
Subject: Re: looking at ruby...

On Mon, 24 Jan 2005, Lothar Scholz wrote:

> There are some things that can never be done with anything else then a
> static typed language. Computational algorithms like matrix
> operations, parsing, decoding or compression will always be around 100-200
> times slower. No bytecode will help you here. Even FORTH which is far better
> then bytecode (direct threaded interpreter, together with a build in
> stack that eliminates the function call overhead) is not very good in
> doing these things.

On the Perl side, the usual attitude is identify those particular things, and 
write extensions in C that do those things. Then the users of the language are 
only using the Perl interface to those things, not having to each write a bunch 
of C. I see enough brilliant programmers using Ruby that, regardless of 
individual opinions on this, that is the direction it will go. It goes that 
direction faster, the more people who realize this. Not because Ruby should be 
like Perl, but because it has real world success to do this. Most users of a 
high level language WILL choose to keep their app just in one language.

Certainly it would be a misunderstanding to think I meant, Ruby is self 
hosting, or should be, or anything in that direction. I only meant, that is for 
internals type people, and it is too bad to claim that that should be required 
of everybody, just to get good performance out of typical programs.

Because that leaves out a lot of people. Who won't, in the end, be left out. 
The non-inclusive ideology has no chance to succeed, because Ruby is free 
software.

Of course people who find joy in writing C, will still do so instead of using 
libraries :)

> Unfortunately many people still don't understand that many projects
> should be written in multiple languages.

Meep! Well, perhaps instead of being ignorant dummies who don't understand, we 
simply disagree. It is worth a little thought perhaps?

--
RubyPanther