From: Mark Wilden Date: 2008-05-29T07:44:39+09:00 Subject: Re: Should I Learn Ruby as a First Language? On May 28, 2008, at 3:13 PM, Bill Kelly wrote: > From: "Yukihiro Matsumoto" > To: > Sent: Monday, May 26, 2008 8:18 AM > Subject: Re: [PATCH] lambda with normal block syntax > > > > [...] I program in C more than Ruby If you're writing Ruby, as opposed to doing applications programming, that makes sense! > So... matz has implemented ruby in a "bad language" ? It's funny. I used to work at Sierra On-Line (a long time ago) where we used a home-grown OOP language to write adventure games. The guy who wrote the language was without doubt the smartest person I've ever worked with. But he actually had very little OOP experience, and I was able to teach him a thing or two about using his own language! All that's to say that "Matz uses C more than Ruby" doesn't really bear on which is the better language. However, I should have said that C is a "bad" language for applications, in the sense that Ruby is much better! > Personally I find it extremely useful to be fluent in the > language that Ruby is written in. Ruby would be a lot less > useful to me if I weren't able to write my own ruby extension > modules. . . . Which requires a knowledge of C, > if one is using Matz' ruby. (Obviously if I were using > JRuby, knowledge of C wouldn't be anywhere near as relevant.) That's great, but it doesn't apply to most people. > I'm not convinced someone should learn C *before* ruby, > however I find C to be an extremely vaulable language to know. As someone who's quoted in the GNU C FAQ, I probably have as great an appreciation of C as anyone. I just think its sell-by date has passed for most applications. On the other hand, I wouldn't write a device driver in Ruby. ///ark