From: Isaac Gouy <igouy@...>
Date: 2006-09-03T10:35:27+09:00
Subject: Re: When clever is stupid


M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
> Isaac Gouy wrote:
> >> There are tools and programming styles that can make C programming as
> >> easy as programming in a dynamic language like Ruby or Perl or Python.
> >> And the whining about the edit/compile/link/test cycle being less
> >> efficient than the edit/test cycle of a dynamic language I think is just
> >> that -- whining. If your complex application is properly modularized,
> >> that's just not a big deal.
> >
> > No, not just whining.
> >
> > There's so much to know about any programming language and tool chain,
> > that we are understandably ignorant of other languages and tools.
> > However in these Google days it's harder to understand why we would
> > continue to assume that the only tools available for C are
> > compilers/linkers... Searching on c interpreter should be enough to
> > find things like http://root.cern.ch/root/Cint.html
>
> Ah ... but why would I waste the time to search for, download, install,
> learn, and most likely beta test a C interpreter when I'm perfectly
> effective with Vim, gcc, make, autoconf, cvs/subversion, etc.? Or in the
> Windows environment with Visual C++ Express and the platform SDK?
>
> Let's put it this way ... I'm saying programmers shouldn't whine that
> the edit/compile/link/test cycle of C is less efficient than the
> edit/test cycle of Ruby, because it isn't if their program is properly
> modularized. And you seem to be saying that they shouldn't whine about
> the edit/compile/link/test cycle of C being less efficient than the
> edit/test cycle of Ruby because there is a C interpreter. :)

Yes, either understandable ignorance (didn't know there were C
interpreters) or disingenuous pretence (mentioning C interpreters
edit/test completely undermines the relative advantage of Ruby
edit/test, without needing to assert that edit/compile/link/test is
just as efficient).

(In anycase I wouldn't characterize it as whining.)