From: Paul Prescod <paul@...>
Date: 2001-10-27T00:26:01+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:23465] Re: Bruce Eckel's opinion of Ruby

Joel Neely wrote:
> 
> Hi, Paul,
> 
> I think perhaps I remember you from the Python mailing list a few years
> back...?

Yes, I've been known to hang out there too. :0-)

>...
> 1)  Compared to other professions and disciplines, computing is still
>     very much in its infancy. ....

Let me play the devil's advocate: sure, but if you want alternative
languages, look at Haskell, Mercury, XSLT, etc. Ruby, Python and,
ostensibly, Perl 6, are just peas in a pod: deeply object oriented,
module based, real exceptions, dynamically type checked, good support
for systems administration and text processing etc. No, they aren't
identical but they are in very much the same class as C/Pascal were
(statically typed, procedural) and as (in my mind) Eiffel/Java/Simula
are (statically typed, GCed OO).

And anyhow, I admitted up front that leaving them separate has the
technical advantage of letting them compete and learn from each other.
But you haven't addressed my real point which is that there is a cost in
popularity to be paid for our disunity. The sum of Perl+Python+Ruby
users is much smaller than the count that we would have if we all got
together and said: "We have a dynamically typed, easy to extend,
string-saavy alternative to Java".

> 2)  Many of the parties (I bravely resisted the impulse to refer to
>     Redmond, ... ooops! ;-) that push so hard for a single official
> worldview are doing so for their own benefit, to strengthen their own
> position as gatekeeper to all access to knowledge and commerce.  For
> S*n to counter that threat by promoting J*v* as the single answer to
> all problems is simply fighting fire with fire.  The 'Net evolved so
> rapidly precisely because the standardization occurred at the level
> of INTERFACES/PROTOCOLS which diverse implementations/platforms could
> use as their point of contact.  That's where the battle for a free
> Internet will be won or lost, not by creating a three-way fire fight
> instead of a two-way one.

I'm not considering the "battle for the internet". I'm considering the
battle to go into an average fortune 500 company and suggest that a
mission critical application be coded in something other than Java and
not be laughed out. I just came from a conference that was ostensibly
about Web Services protocols but the Java and J2EE, er, fragrance, was
so strong that it was clear that the question of what programming
language to use for new projects was not even on the table. That is not
a good environment for Ruby, Python etc. I actually feel like the open
source languages may have lost ground from the days when Perl was the
defacto standard language for dynamic website programming.

 Paul Prescod