From: "Jürgen Strobel" <strobel@...>
Date: 2006-08-11T22:29:54+09:00
Subject: Re: does ":" have an anolog in another language?

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On Fri, Aug 11, 2006 at 01:49:08AM +0900, Rick DeNatale wrote:
> On 8/9/06, J=FCrgen Strobel <strobel@secure.at> wrote:
>=20
> >As Ruby started out as a simple Lisp dialect, that's certainly where
> >:symbols come from.
>=20
> I'm not sure what Matz would say about this.  Although Lisp was
> certainly one influence, it's pretty clear that Smalltalk was at
> least, if not more so.  One hint is the naming of the iterators in
> enumerable, and the use of blocks.  Not to mention the ruby object
> model, which can be seen as another evolutionary step in the chain
> started through Smalltalk-72, Smalltalk-76, and Smalltalk-80, with a
> few capabilities of Self mixed in.  Now, Lisp of course had a great
> deal of influence on Alan Kay and Dan Ingalls in conceiving and
> developing Smalltalk as well, but I don't think that it's accurate to
> say that "Ruby started out as a simple Lisp dialect."  As I understand
> it started out as a scripting language which was completely
> object-oriented in the way Kay intended when he coined the term.  What
> I sense as the family-tree of ruby, through the glasses of an old
> Smalltalker, looks something like:
>=20
>      +--------------------+
>     /          Perl -------\
>   Lisp --> Smaltalk --\--> Ruby
>                  \- Self -/
>=20
> But that's an archaeological analysis, with a certain bias on my part.
>=20
> --=20
> Rick DeNatale

I think I know :)

Here's a quote from Matz, not sure where it originally came from. I
had it in some of my notes and possible presentations material.
If anyone knows this to be misattributed, please correct me:

-----
Ruby is a language designed in the following steps:

  * take a simple lisp language (like one prior to CL).
  * remove macros, s-expression.
  * add simple object system (much simpler than CLOS).
  * add blocks, inspired by higher order functions.
  * add methods found in Smalltalk.
  * add functionality found in Perl (in OO way).

So, Ruby was a Lisp originally, in theory.
Let's call it MatzLisp from now on. ;-)

                                                        matz.
-----

So yes, he explicitly started with something Lisp like, and added
Smalltalk's object model along with Perl's good stuff. If I had to add
anoher language there I would say C, because even if Ruby is very
different from C a lot of C-isms (or POSIX-isms) shine through where
Ruby is just a layer over the C std. library.

-J=FCrgen

--=20
 The box said it requires Windows 95 or better so I installed Linux

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