From: Steven Lumos <steven@...>
Date: 2005-12-23T08:53:18+09:00
Subject: Re: Diff of opinion on dynamic stuff

why the lucky stiff <ruby-talk@whytheluckystiff.net> writes:
> Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:
>> "open class" is so strong (often too strong), we can break things
>> easily.  In other word, Ruby trust you to give you sharp knives, where
>> Python don't.  From the Python point of view, it's wrong, I guess.
>>   
> Matz has put us in great danger.  But Rubyist are okay with it I
> guess.  I am strangely at peace with this perilous language in my
> home!
>
> Superman does dangerous things to solve problems, too.  He'll bend a
> street pole around a villianous guy.  People, stop cheering.
>
> _why

I'm going to play devil's advocate and hopefully somebody with some
direct experience will chime in.

Rubyists are mostly people who know how not to aim at their foot, and
are skilled in first-aid just in case.  But what happens when the code
is delivered and moves into maintenance mode? It falls into the hands
of code-slaves who are just dying to sacrifice toes and heap the blame
straight on you is what.  I'm assuming it's these -- probably not
Rubyist -- people who are being refered to as the "second generation".

Surely, if you delivered Pascal code instead of Ruby code, it would be
less likely that the bozo trying to make a one-line change is going to
end up deleting 25 million rows from your customer's database or
something.

Steve