From: Pistos Christou Date: 2006-03-21T00:53:09+09:00 Subject: Re: Are college professors teaching computer science with ru ruby talk wrote: > I feel that the only true difference is syntax. Instead of learning a > specific language students should learn how to learn different > surtaxes. > > I learned how to program c++ in high school, and continued using it in > college. I had to teach my self ruby, java, php, lisp, VB, C#. I do > not clam to be a pro in each of these, but if i need to do something i > know what the syntax looks like, and i can research the information i > need. I used to think this until relatively recently in my programming lifetime/career, but nowadays, I don't think that way any more. Two languages can be so radically different that they require a different way of thinking about or approaching the very same problem. Consider how you might use any of the following languages to solve an elementary text processing problem, such as text substitution applied to all lines of a text file: Haskell, Prolog, Lisp, Ruby, C, Assembly. I'd wager that you can't just go in your text editor and search and replace "just syntax" and make it work. Even if you could, the resulting metamorphosis would very likely be suboptimal for the target language in question, considering efficiency, elegance and readability. Somewhat related is [a recent blog post][1] of James Edward Grey II, which shows that differences in the language and standard library can bring about different solutions. [1]: http://blog.grayproductions.net/articles/2006/03/10/java-a-bit-on-the-wordy-side -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.