From: Sean Russell <ser@...>
Date: 2001-06-29T23:36:03+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:17063] Re: RCR for the String class

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On Thursday 28 June 2001 19:00, you wrote:
> Yeah... Ya know what I don't like about Ruby?  The class names are too
> short.  And there aren't enough of them.  I want a BufferedReader and a
> BufferedInputStream and a ByteArrayInputStream and a
> LeftThirdToenailClipper too.  It really grates on me that I don't need a
> couple of 4-inch-thick books on the desk next to me when I want to get
> something simple done.

Ooh, ooh... and another thing I hate about Ruby.  All of those Object 
thingies.  Why can't we have the simplicity of C, where everything is a 
function?  Why go through all the trouble of this "encapsulation" stuff?  
What a bother.  Oh, and I also hate people who choose descriptive variable 
names, like "count" and "max_people".  I'd much rather read code that uses 
variables such as "x", "y", "i" exclusively.  Dang, I don't know why I bother 
to use Ruby at all.  You can REALLY pack a lot of code into one line in Perl! 
It's the ultimate language!

Seriously, though, the names of the classes is moot.  You could call them X 
and Y if you want, for all I care.  As long as I don't have to read your 
code.  The point I was trying to make is that Java, in general, does a better 
job of hiding the implementation details than Ruby does in some of the core 
classes, and is in /that/ way more OO than Ruby.

And, yes... some naming conventions in Ruby such as "to_i", "to_a", and 
"to_s" bother me a bit.  There is the assumption that people will know that 
"to_i" stands for "to_integer", which implies that "integers" are special, 
not like other objects, in some way.  This mirrors Java's special treatment 
of primatives in attitude, if not in implementation.

I vastly prefer Ruby to Java, but that doesn't mean that I wouldn't have done 
some things a bit differently had I had the great genius to invent Ruby.  
Luckily, I can create a library to include in my programs that renames or 
changes (almost) anything about Ruby that I don't like.  I can not do this in 
Java, and therein lies part of the reason I choose Ruby over Java when I can.

- --- SER   Deutsch|Esperanto|Francais|Linux|Java|Dirigibles|GPG|Pegwit
"Did you ever notice that while MS stands for Microsoft, it also stands
for the dread disease Multiple Sclerosis? Well, why not? They're both
slow, crippling and ultimately deadly."   -- Monika McDole
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