From: Phillip Gawlowski <cmdjackryan@...>
Date: 2008-04-08T23:36:27+09:00
Subject: Re: RubyâEURO(tm)s not ready - an indepth essay

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| However I did sympathise with the author's comment on having too many
| ways to do the same thing. They pretty much mirror my feelings: that
| you either learn them all (in which case you lost in simplicity) or
| you'll have a very hard time reading other people's code. I admit
| though that it makes _writing_ code easier.
|
| I know however that the Ruby community is strongly in favour of this
| "feature", so I was wondering why.

Learning Ruby as my first language, I can emphasize with this issue.

But: The TMTOWDI approach helps with productivity. A lot. I switch
between the different idioms and methods as the situation requires.
Sometimes it is more natural to use #match, sometimes it is more natural
to use #scan, depending on the situation.

The only problem I've had is the less than optimal documentation for
Ruby, so it is rather difficult to find what a method does or,
sometimes, where it comes from.

And lets face it: Most code in the world is write-only: It's written
once, and becomes instant legacy code. How often is code completely
revisited, and has to be re-factored in an amount of time that makes it
impossible to wrap one's head around it again? Not much, and it doesn't
happen often (mostly in languages that are used in the enterprise, where
refactoring tools are available, and IDEs are more useful than with Ruby
at the moment).

Besides, it helps with problem solving, I've noticed, the more Ruby I
pick up. It's a matter of using the right tool for the right job within
the language itself.

However, I've not yet formalized my IT knowledge, so take it with a
grain of salt. My view is an opinion. Treat it as such.

- --
Phillip Gawlowski
Twitter: twitter.com/cynicalryan

Write first in an easy-to-understand pseudo-language; then translate into
whatever language you have to use.
~            - The Elements of Programming Style (Kernighan & Plaugher)
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