From: Terry Poulin <bigboss64@...>
Date: 2007-09-25T08:49:42+09:00
Subject: Re: Question about 2005 Ruby critique...

> I think that line really says it all.  There's a *lot* of stuff that
> isn't better than Perl.  Perl's a great language, especially within its
> particular niches of choice.  Ruby is certainly better than Perl at some
> things, and Perl is better than Ruby at others.  Both are better than
> Python at some things.  Et cetera.
>
> The so-called critique (more of an attempt at character assassination) is
> filled with questionable value judgments without much value outside
> personal preferences, presented as facts.  I don't think it requires much
> addressing beyond pointing out the ridiculous assumptions embodied in
> that headline.  Further indications that the author has no clue what
> he/she is talking about include the implication that Perl doesn't support
> closures, that Ruby's functional (read: no side effects) capabilities are
> anathema to the language's core design philosophy, that side effects are
> necessarily bad, and so on.
>
> With such devastating exercises of logical rigor in making an argument as
> "WTF???" and "Yuck," against which I have no defense, I feel I have been
> bested on the field of honor.  I shall now withdraw.
>
> --
> CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
> Patrick J. LoPresti: "Emacs has been replaced by a shell script which 1)
> Generates a syslog message at level LOG_EMERG; 2) reduces the user's disk
> quota by 100K; and 3) RUNS ED!!!!!!"
>
>

I'm familiar with a number of languages if not strongly with putting OOP into
practice. You could say collecting languages and programs has been some thing
of a hobby of mine for a short number of years now.


I remember when I first met the C style for loops, like "for (i = 0; i < foo;
i++) { ... }" and how archaic I thought them at first. In my travels I've
occasionally shouted "Dang I wish this was like language X" when doing some
thing in language Y -- I think most people have!


My policy is, I didn't write it, I didn't design it, and I didn't help them
create the language. So why complain about their decisions. As long as they
document the ruddy thing who cares.


Perl makes a fair bit of usage of $who_the_heck_can_remember_this_symbol
variables too, looking at quick references for Ruby. I usually see stuff that
allows me to bring knowledge of other languages into play and thus learn and
use Ruby more effectively. Because it borrows from other languages also in
common usage; good for programmers who know those languages. Although if I did
design a programming language I would probably be the worlds biggest critic of
it. ^_^


There is an old saying that if you try to please *everyone* you will please
*noone* at all. Although Perl might be able to do both reasonably well
depending on the type of person you are.


TerryP.


PS: Chad Perrin, nice quote in the sigblock :-)



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