From: Stuart Stegall <stuart@...>
Date: 2006-04-27T06:47:46+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby for command line applications

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Kirk Haines wrote:
> On Wednesday 26 April 2006 3:31 pm, Jake McArthur wrote:
>
>   
>> Ruby: Good for those who like to make elegant solutions to their
>> problems. Tends to make readable programs that can be easily modified
>> later. More powerful than Perl (IMHO), but not as concise. Definitely
>> is the most enjoyable language to work with on a regular basis as it
>> does not hinder you with weird syntax or restrictions, for the most
>> part.
>>     
>
> I would argue that point.  Back in 2002, when I was first learning Ruby, I was 
> coming to it from many years of using Perl for everything.  To my joy I found 
> that, in general, my newbie-Ruby code was shorter and more readable than 
> equivalent Perl of a type that I would actually use in production.
>
> I'm not talking the ultra-compressed, obfusicated, line-noise Perl, but the 
> kind of thing one writes when one wants to have a chance of easily 
> understanding it again 6 months later.
>
> For a while I delighted in taking my Perl production code and rewriting parts 
> of it in Ruby, just to bask in it's readability and it's terseness.  It was a 
> joy.
>
> So, speaking as someone who uses Ruby for command line tools and system 
> automation scripts, I strongly support the use of Ruby for those sorts of 
> things, in lieu of Perl.
>
>
> Kirk Haines
>
>
>   
It could just be me, but I feel that the biggest difference is more 
cultural vs technical.  You can write long elegant Perl code and you can 
write short obfusticated Ruby code. (If you were talking about OLD Perl 
obviously this is a different argument, but current 5.5+ is entirely 
capable.)

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