[ruby-talk:20179] Re: Bruce Eckel's criticism of Ruby

On Thu, Aug 23, 2001 at 07:06:40PM +0900, Mark Hulme-Jones wrote:
> Back when Python was a relatively unknown language, I decided to learn
> it.  At the time I was struck by the friendliness and inclusiveness of
> the community.  There didn't seem to be such an attitude of "our
> language is the one true way, all other languages are worthless" that
> I'd found elsewhere.  And back then Python people were often saddened to
> see other language camps making exactly these sorts of criticisms of
> Python.  How things change.

I think that is kind of a natural development. When a language is small
and new, the people who seek it out are open-minded langauge enthusiasts
and explorers. If they weren't open-minded they wouldn't look at small and
new langauges. As the languge grows the proportion of open-minded people
shrinks. The case of Python indicates that this can happen even when the
language is simple (i.e., without the Perl arcana) and emphasizes 
Computer Programming For Everybody.

comp.perl.lang.misc is essentially unreadable. comp.lang.python seems to
be going the same way. When Guido recently tried to bring up some design
issues for discussion (such as changing the meaning of the "/" operator)
the result was an improductive flamewar.

Now the important question: How can we prevent this from happening to Ruby
when it gets its well-earned success? We should stay humble and encourage
people to look at other languages(*). What else?

// Niklas

(*) I can recommend a look at Lua -- a langauge that achieves a lot
considering its size.