From: Chad Perrin <perrin@...>
Date: 2005-12-23T10:50:20+09:00
Subject: Re: Diff of opinion on dynamic stuff

On Fri, Dec 23, 2005 at 08:53:18AM +0900, Steven Lumos wrote:
> 
> 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".

I think you're probably right, and it's a valid concern.  I just don't
think it's a valid reason for eschewing Ruby.


> 
> 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.

That's really only because while it might take a ten-line change to do
the same thing in Pascal, that one line in Ruby has the functionality of
about twenty lines of Pascal code.  There are things I like about
Pascal, but this isn't one of them.

By the way . . .
I have, in the past, found myself thinking Python might be the Pascal of
scripting languages, and you got me thinking about that again.
-- 
Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]

unix virus: If you're using a unixlike OS, please forward
this to 20 others and erase your system partition.