From: Jeff Wood <jeff.darklight@...>
Date: 2005-11-29T15:40:20+09:00
Subject: Re: Programming Newbie: Ruby or Java?

------=_Part_3795_26915652.1133246413336
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Disposition: inline

If lines of code were the winning factor, people would almost always use
perl for all of its infamous one-liner line-noise solutions to things...

j.

On 11/28/05, Peter Burns <rictic@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 11/28/05, Christian Leskowsky <christian.leskowsky@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I see where you're coming from.  I think there may even be a thread ove=
r
> on
> > java.net talking about boiler plate code in Java (eg. the new for/in
> syntax
> > in 1.5 was added to get rid of the repetitive iterator blocks).
> >
> > I wish people wouldn't use lines of code as a metric for the goodness o=
f
> > Ruby though.  I think Ruby is neat too, but not because I'm typing
> less.  ;p
> >
> > Take care,
> >
> > -
> > Chris
> >
>
> Lines of code can be a predictor of the number of things that the
> language requires the programmer to deal with.  The obvious gripe with
> Java here is that it requires all programs to be classes, thus making
> even a simple hello world program five lines long with all sorts of
> crazy black box code.  I think it could be a detriment to a new
> programmer to have to put in so much voodoo code.  It makes the system
> seem strange and unapproachable.  The questions I always had when I
> was learning Java as a newbie programmer like "Why do I have to put
> static in front of my functions?" bothered me, especially when I
> couldn't understand word one of the answers to them.
>
> Ruby is nice in the context of just learning to program because you
> can generally approach one concept at a time.  I also find ruby to be
> generally more readable, and that is very useful when all of the
> concepts are still so new and foreign.
>
> I think that a new programmer would feel as though they understood
> more of their code when writing in ruby.  If that leads one to play
> around and try stuff out more, then that's a huge win, because
> experimenting and seeing what happens is (for me at least) the single
> best way to really, truly learn something.
>
>


--
"Remember. Understand. Believe. Yield! -> http://ruby-lang.org"

Jeff Wood

------=_Part_3795_26915652.1133246413336--