From: John Carter <john.carter@...>
Date: 2007-07-12T08:11:19+09:00
Subject: Re: Beautiful Code : Pity he didn't ask here...

On Tue, 10 Jul 2007, Tim Bray wrote:

> I personally think that the reason Ruby will enjoy an ever
> increasing market share in the programming-languages space is
> because it's more readable.
   >snip<
> Gosh, I think I totally disagree on readability grounds.

I perfectly agree with you.

Yet, I find my use of Ruby has changed on that front.

At first I wrote Ruby that was, I thought, in a most readable style.

What I realized later was, it was most readable to someone who knew
C++ well, but not Ruby.

But now I have found I'm headed more to Hal Fulton's attitude as expressed
in his book "The Ruby Way"
    http://rubyhacker.com/coralbook/

I try to write the most readable code that is most readable by someone
who knows Ruby perfectly well.

If, on the rare occasions that requires deep knowledge of Ruby... I
will explain that in the comment, not the code.

ie. My code assumes you know everything about Ruby. My comments assume
that you are a newbie.

Now that places a conundrum before someone writing a book "Beautiful
Code" for non-Ruby readers. Talk down to them? Speak a C++/Java/Ruby
pidgin?

Personally I would speak up to them. Scan the libraries for the best
code Rubiest have to offer in the Ruby idiom.... and spend my time
explaining the elegance, power and succinctness of it.


John Carter                             Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639
Tait Electronics                        Fax   : (64)(3) 359 4632
PO Box 1645 Christchurch                Email : john.carter@tait.co.nz
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