[ruby-talk:23594] Re: Ruby and Python: a fuzzy question

Kevin Smith <[e-mail]> writes:

> Ok, Dave. Enough other people have shared. What are your thoughts?

Fuzzy :)

For me, programming is 100% communicating. Coding is about expressing
ideas and intentions, either on behalf of someone else or (when you're
lucky) yourself. In this way, coding is like writing or (to use Chad's
experience) composing music.

When you write, you use different styles. A contract is written using
different language than a ghost story. Your first love letter uses
different writing techniques, words, phrasings, and images compared to
your first letter of complaint to some vendor (at least it does if you
want to be around to write a second love letter).

The same is true of programming. As developers, we have to be able to
write in different styles, to express ourselves using different
idioms.  Sometimes, the style is so formalized we use special-purpose
programming languages: IDL for expressing CORBA interfaces, YACC for
grammars, and so on.  But the majority of the time we're not so
lucky. Instead of using a specialized tool, we're left trying to
impose a style on some general-purpose programming language, a C,
Java, Perl, Ruby, ...

This takes effort (even if it is sometimes subconscious), and that
effort results in inefficiencies and frustrations.  The language is a
barrier to creative expression.

Part of the effort is in the translation process itself: the higher
level the language (in general) the less effort required to achieve a
result.  However, the level of the language is only part of the
inefficiency.  There's also a significant loss which results from the
impedance mismatch between your internal model of the problem you're
solving and the way the programming language lets you express that
model.  And I think that's where the imponderable personal side of it
comes in.

The higher-level the language, the more you can get done in a given
number of statements. But because those statements are more
expressive, there's also a higher risk of the impedance mismatch: if
you and the language designer don't think the same way, you'll be
constantly battling against his or her abstractions. (I think this is
also why people are less passionate about languages designed by
committees: the languages are bland because the inputs of multiple
designers tend to average out).

So, a good general purpose language will allow you to express ideas
compactly (that is, it will be at a high level) but will also allow
you to express ideas _your_ way (reducing the impedance mismatch).
With languages designed largely by individuals (such as Perl, Python,
and Ruby), the latter boils down to the philosophical compatibilities
between you and the language designer.

I can't speak for Perl or Python: I've never spoken with Larry Wall or
GvR. But I do know some of Matz's philosophy when it comes to Ruby. He
wanted to design a human-oriented language, a language that embodies
some of the contradictions we all share. As a result, Ruby is simple
enough to be usable, but not so simple that it is boring. It's
consistent enough to be easy to learn, but ambiguous enough to give
you freedom of expression. It's got a strong theoretical base, but
comes across as a street-wise pragmatic scripting language: you don't
need to know the meta-class model to produce great Ruby code.

And I think Matz succeeded. For me at least, working with Ruby is like
communicating my ideas to an old friend: I can express myself using
short cuts and generalizations, because we have a shared understanding
of the world. At the same time, I can communicate subtleties. The
experience is efficient, effective, and rewarding. When I code in
Java, I often feel like a carbon-based mechanical translator, trudging
through the motions to churn out more code. When I code in Ruby, I
feel like a creative human being.

Clearly, other people find the same feeling with different languages.
For them, these languages meld more closely with their way of
expressing themselves. For this reason, discussions on "my language is
better than your language" are about as useful as "my favorite color
is better than your favorite color."

Finally (loud cheers all round), a speculation: Ruby is designed to be
human-oriented, and attracts a group of people who claim pretty
universally that coding Ruby makes them feel happy. At the same time,
Ruby folks (as exemplified by this list) are regularly complimented
as being the one of the nicest and most supportive online communities
around. Coincidence?


Cheers


Dave