From: Christian Leskowsky <christian.leskowsky@...>
Date: 2005-11-29T20:58:05+09:00
Subject: Re: Programming Newbie: Ruby or Java?

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Hehe...  The thing that probably makes Ruby a little more readable for me i=
s
that I can see more of a program on a single screen  :).

I don't know if the perfect learner language even exists or what it would
look like if it did.  Every language seems to have its own skeletons and
quirks.  I wonder if life would've been easier for me if I started with
something like Ruby (it would've been Perl given the timing).

Then again, so much of learning is dependant on the learner.

Take care,

-

Chris




On 11/29/05, Peter Burns <rictic@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>


--
-

'There was an owl lived in an oak.
The more he heard, the less he spoke.
The less he spoke, the more he heard.'

Christian Leskowsky
christian.leskowsky@gmail.com

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