From: David Alan Black <dblack@...>
Date: 2001-12-31T08:04:59+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:29766] Re: Python and Ruby: a comparison

Hi --

On Sun, 30 Dec 2001, Conrad Schneiker wrote:

> "Ron Stephens" <rdsteph@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> > Very interesting idea. Unfortunately, I doubt if it woudl be possible. For
> one
> > thing, very few people would be willing to compromise on syntax. Ruby
> folks
> > would rightfully be loath to give up their end-begin block delimiters, and
> > likewise we Python folks would not want o give up our whitespace block
> > delimiters.
>
> If that were the most serious problem, their might be some hope after all.
> After all, while both language camps admonish newbies to get used to their
> respective style and point out respective offsetting advantages that may not
> be evident at first, do _most_ people _really_ care that much? I mildly
> dislike indendation syntax, but that wouldn't keep me from using a successor
> language if indendation syntax proved a simpler and cleaner way overall of
> incorporating all Python3000/Ruby.next features. Hopefully most other people
> would feel that way, or vice versa.

Personally, if these two languages merged, I'd really miss Ruby :-)

But on another level, I'm not sure it's meaningful to talk about
languages merging as a kind of permanent change to the way things are.
There's a kind of self-similarity to the language landscape, over
time, which pulls against that.

Let's say Ruby and Python merge.  At that point, someone who finds
deficiencies in that composite language (and there's no such thing as
a language in which nobody will find deficiencies, and there never
will be) decides to write a new language, which might borrow from the
Ruby/Python composite and from other languages but won't be identical
to any of them.

So then, in essence, the original situation is recreated.  Then we
start wondering: if it's *inevitable* that programming languages arise
as a response to perceived gaps in what already exists, then why
didn't we just accept that when it happened in the case of Ruby and
Python?  Why did we bother going through a cycle of contraction and
expansion?


David

-- 
David Alan Black
home: dblack@candle.superlink.net
work: blackdav@shu.edu
Web:  http://pirate.shu.edu/~blackdav