From: Diego Virasoro <Diego.Virasoro@...>
Date: 2006-03-23T10:13:51+09:00
Subject: Re: questions/suggestions from a Ruby newbie

> first let me say it may not be the wisest thing to introduce oneself to
> a language group by suggesting to change that language. (this may
> explain the relative low volume of replies you got)

I am really sorry. I was not meaning to say how the language should be
changed. When I wrote something like: "Why does Ruby not have X?", I
was not trying to say "This is the way Ruby should be", but rather
something like "Why did you choose Ruby should work this way?" or "What
alternatives Ruby offers?".

I hoped my post would not sound as a strong critic to Ruby because I
started by expressing how much I like it and that these are small
problems. I also explicitly explained I am no computer scientist and
that I only know Fortran and C++: with such a premises I could not have
gone very far in seriously suggesting changes to Ruby! :)

After reading a lot of commentaries about Ruby on the net, explaining
the philosophies behind it and its features, I found myself puzzled by
some of the decisions. I understand a lot of reasons could have
contributed to the final choices:
-preserving some older language syntax
-problems in interpreting certain syntaxes (eg. ambiguity)
-possible speed penalities
-philosophical/esthetical reasons
....and many more. I was just wondering what that reason was.

Just as an example coming from Fortran I wondered too why Ruby uses
"end" instead of something like "end if". Then I found a similar
question in another thread. It was explained that in fact Ruby did use
that syntax but then had to changed because of an ambiguity raised by a
new feature.

Finally as I work in science I am particularly interested in certain
topics such as matrices, which may not be at all interesting in other
fields.

I hope my point is clear now.

Anyway I am very happy with the replies I received (thanks again) and
as I wrote before they did answer most of the questions I had.

Diego Virasoro