From: Chad Perrin <perrin@...>
Date: 2007-06-02T09:22:25+09:00
Subject: Re: ruby vs perl6

On Fri, Jun 01, 2007 at 08:49:01PM +0900, Robert Dober wrote:
> On 6/1/07, Chad Perrin <perrin@apotheon.com> wrote:
> >
> >That won't stop me from using Ruby, though, any more than the fact I'm
> >using Ruby has stopped me from using Perl 5.x.  In fact, I've decided
> >to work on priority queue management scripts in Perl.  Meanwhile, the
> >signature at the end of this email was chosen randomly by a script I
> >wrote in Ruby.
> >
> >Why limit yourself to one language?
> >
> >--
> >CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
> >W. Somerset Maugham: "The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for
> >wit."
> So your quoting program picked that quote, that's AI!!!!

My simple little Ruby script does a surprisingly good job of picking out
signatures that are appropriate to the subject matter of my emails.  I
used something called signify when I was using Debian as my primary OS,
and decided it was time to write my own since I figured it would take as
much time and effort to learn the quirks of a different random signature
program as to write a new one when I started migrating my life from
Debian to FreeBSD.  I might have thought the apparently fortuitous
appropriateness of my signature script's choices might just be some kind
of psychological effect if it wasn't for the fact that signify produced
far less serendipitous choices on average, from the same list of sigs,
than my Ruby script does.

I doubt it's AI, but it sure does seem difficult to explain by way of
mere randomness.

-- 
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
McCloctnick the Lucid: "The first rule of magic is simple. Don't waste your
time waving your hands and hopping when a rock or a club will do."