From: Conrad Schneiker <schneiker@...>
Date: 2000-03-25T14:01:40-06:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:02164] Re: Scripting and OO -- thought question

From: Clemens Hintze <c.hintze@gmx.net>

> h.fulton@att.net writes:
> > Here's an opinion question for you all.
> >
> > I was telling a friend about Ruby the other day,
> > and I told him how it was OO from the ground up,
> > unlike Perl, etc.
> >
> > His interest level was mild. He said that he
> > thought object orientation was a good thing in
> > general, but that for the things scripting
> > languages are generally used for, it's not that
> > useful.
> >
> > 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?
>
> That is difficult, I think. IMHO, your friend has a total archaic
> understanding of the term scripting. If he does not want to revise
> this understanding, he never will catch the whole truth, I fear.

For many (if not most) people I know (and know of), "scripting" != "real
programming". This is why I think it is futile (if not foolish) to keep
using this term for things in connection with Perl, Python, and Ruby.

> Today a new level has open. The task of the high-level languages in
> the past, are now taken over by the so-called scripting languages.
> What Assembler was for C yesterday, is C for scripting languages like
> Ruby or Perl today. Unfortunately much people has not recognized it
> yet. But I am sure they will!

Not as long as you keep calling it scripting! :-)

<Lot of other very good points snipped.>

Look at this issue this way: back when only serious programming wizzards and
gurus used Unix, scripting was held in fairly high regard. But now that
seemingly everyone does it, it has come to _most-commonly_ be regarded as
the sort of thing that mostly people with low-level skills do. Somewhat
likewise, the _common_ understanding of the word hacker has changed from
exceptionally skilled developer to someone that specializes in breaking into
computer systems. You can argue forever that this is technically incorrect
(and maybe many of us would agree with you), but you will just confuse or
mislead people if you persist in using terms in a way that is contrary to
the impressions that they most commonly convey. It is unfortunate, but there
are strong reasons (besides envy, laziness, or resentment) why Dilbert is
wildly popular.

Please repeat after me, at least 100 times a day, Ruby is a PROGRAMMING
language! 8-)

Conrad