From: "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <znmeb@...>
Date: 2008-05-01T11:06:25+09:00
Subject: Re: Typed ruby

Joe K wrote:
> M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
> 
>> And does it also mean that if the comments are incorrect, the IDE gives
>> you the wrong answer? How do you test for that?
> 
> Not as likely to happen as giving the wrong parameter type, IMO.
>  
>> I think we should probably keep the holy war (Ruby vs. Ada for large
>> projects where large teams need to communicate, tools for such projects,
>> etc.) going, because I think it's an important topic. 
> 
> I'm not familiar with Ada, but I do believe Ruby could use work as a
> large-project platform and not just a hacker's language. I much prefer Ruby
> to most languages, but I'm tending to Scala now that it has the strength of
> the Java platform behind it without the mundaneness of the java language.
> Also, because its typing system is stronger than Java's. 
> 
>> Curiously enough, 
>> a couple of years ago at a Scheme workshop, I heard some Schemers claim
>> that they "consistently" lost speed-coding contests to Java programmers,
>> all other things being equal, just because of Java's typing mechanisms.
>> So ...
> 
> I have to use java at work and find I spend far less time actually typing
> code than with other languages. I tend to concentrate more on program
> structure and design.

Despite what many people say about it, Java is an exceptionally 
well-designed language. I was amazed at how easy it was to write Java 
code when I first tried it. I wrote one program, a queuing theory model. 
It took me no longer to write it than it would have in, say, Perl. But 
it never got used and it sits today in a CM repository. And I've never 
written any Java since.

However, everything I say good about Java pertains *only* to the Sun 
implementation. I wouldn't touch the others with ... well ... anything. :)