From: Bill Kelly <billk@...>
Date: 2008-02-22T10:08:25+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby type-safe? Ruby strongly/weakly typed? Ruby pitfalls?


From: "Rule.rule" <rule.rule.rule@gmail.com>
>
> I only recently started to really "catch up" on Ruby (and Rails) and
> trying to get my grips around this innovative and peculiar language.
> But I do have a long background in OOP, as well as functional
> languages and -- *shudder* -- type-theory,
> and also long experience with several industrial projects both
> building and maintaining large-scale applications.
> 
> While I certainly can see the strong sides and potentials in Ruby, I
> also found some characteristics
> that, from my own background and experience, would seem obviously
> problematic in real-life development.

If you have a really long background in OOP, you probably started
with Smalltalk right?  (Since its inventor, Alan Kay, coined the
term Object Oriented.)

<grin>

Anyway - Ruby has strong/dynamic typing like Smalltalk.  (Ignoring
Smalltalk's #become ... :)

There are plenty of examples of "real-life" development in both
Ruby and Smalltalk...

If your prior OOP experience has been solely with watered-down
OOP languages like C++ or Java, then, my condolences.  But static
typing is not required for "real-life" development.  :)


Regards,

Bill