From: Louis J Scoras Date: 2006-06-10T01:40:41+09:00 Subject: Re: Ruby's role in future operating systems > At 17:21 09.06.2006, James Edward Gray II wrote: > >I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the value of shell scripting > >languages. They target a different problem space: gluing programs > >together. It's easy to write shell scripts using redirection and > >pipes that would be significantly bigger when translated to Ruby. > > Precisely as James said. This is part of the Unix Philosophy and what makes command-line interfaces so powerful. Well behaved programs can be used in pipelines to do far more than their creators originally intended. On 6/9/06, Kyrre Nygard wrote: > You're making a good point here. But to me it feels like a "if it works > don't fix it" kind of thing. I mean, all in all, wouldn't Ruby prevail? > > Feel free to show me some examples though. # mp32ogg [untested] - quick and dirty conversion: mpg321 -w - somesong.mp3 | oggenc -o somesong.ogg - > Also, what if this operating system were to use a Ruby shell? I believe this has been tried w/ several different languages before. You could do it, but it's not awefully convienent because most general purpose languages weren't designed for this (i.e.: they can't be typed as quickly). -- Lou.