From: Jeremy Tregunna <jtregunna@...>
Date: 2007-04-18T07:53:53+09:00
Subject: Re: IDEs, syntactic vs. semantic highlighting, etc.

On 17-Apr-07, at 5:06 PM, Chad Perrin wrote:

> On Wed, Apr 18, 2007 at 12:45:22AM +0900, Jeremy Tregunna wrote:
>> On 16-Apr-07, at 8:53 PM, Chad Perrin wrote:
>>>
>>> That's really saying some awful things about Java -- not that I'm
>>> all that surprised.  Perl's OO is ugly as sin (and I'm a fan of  
>>> Perl,
>>> saying this).  Sure, it's not as awful as PHP's and VB's OOP  
>>> features,
>>> but it's not exactly elegant by any stretch.
>>>
>>> I must agree that, judging by my own experience, Ruby really does  
>>> get
>>> object oriented programming substantially "right".
>>
>> Without hijacking this thread and making it about prototype
>> languages, I really do find statements like this cute (not
>> necessarily funny, but cute). While Ruby's Classes (and Smalltalk's
>> too) are just objects, it seems weird to me to separate the two
>> concepts. So any statement like that makes me wonder what kind of
>> exposure to object-oriented languages one has--or rather, lack of
>> exposure to many.
>
> That sounds slightly condescending.

Yeah, I know. My apologies.

> I haven't dealt with object oriented programming in a great many
> languages.  I've run up against it in C++, Object Pascal, Objective C,
> PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, and VB, at least.  I may have forgotten a
> couple.  I happen to like Ruby's more than Obj-C's, which I tend to  
> like
> more than that of any of the rest of the languages I've mentioned (as
> far as I recall -- I don't remember OOP in Object Pascal much, for
> instance).  I like the general structure of OOP in Python more than  
> any
> of the rest of them except Ruby, but I dislike Python in general,  
> so it
> loses out.
>
> Does that give you a clearer idea of where my comments are arising?

Yup, it was just as suspected -- not one single prototype language in  
that bunch; I might suggest if you enjoy languages, you check out one  
or two. Javascript is one, though not necessarily the most robust. Io  
is another, though very young. Prototype languages have spoiled me  
with the whole "use objects like classes if you want, but we're not  
going to make you do it that way" philosophy. I tend to find a lot of  
the Ruby code I write these days reflects that style, as it's  
conceptually easier to understand in my opinion.

--
jer