From: matz@... (Yukihiro Matsumoto)
Date: 2000-03-26T00:31:46+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:02156] Re: Scripting and OO -- thought question

Hi,

In message "[ruby-talk:02142] Scripting and OO -- thought question"
    on 00/03/24, h.fulton@att.net <h.fulton@att.net> writes:

|In his words, "If I were going to write a 60,000
|line chess program or something, I wouldn't do it
|in Perl or any other script; I'd use Java or C++
|or something. And if I were doing something like
|a filter, like 'munging' a text file, I wouldn't
|really need OO."
|
|That's an interesting thought. How would you answer
|him?

It highly depends on the definition of `scripting', I think.

By this word, I mean `emphasis on development productivity, not by
assuring software accuracy (e.g. static typing), but by fast
development cycle and concise expression due to high level
functionality'.

It is useful for developing small "munging" programs.  But can be
applied far more generic range of domains.

Unfortunately, since programs written in `scripting' languages tended
to be small, non "real", toy like languages were enough.  This does
not mean 'scripting == non real' nor 'scripting == small programs'.

It's common misunderstanding.

I think your friend believes that small programs need small and handy
languages, and bigger program need "real" languages.  But world of
programming languages is not divided in such manner.  There are
languages which let you write less to make programming easy and fun,
and languages which let you write more to archive software accuracy
(and few other ones like prolog).

Generally speaking, it's not directly related to program size nor
domain.  However, languages of the latter are not suitable for very
small programs.

"Toy" languages are not good.  They can solve small problems, but
"real" languages solve same problems better.

							matz.