From: Paul Prescod <paul@...>
Date: 2002-01-14T02:52:27+09:00
Subject: Re: Why I think Ruby will eventually be more popular than Python

Thomas Gandy wrote:
> 
>...
> 
> Ultimatly, the 'flexible' mentality won over the 'puritan' mentality
> because in C you had more freedom. [than in Pascal]

One interesting point is that Java is more puritan than Pascal and
rapidly becoming more popular than C. This indicates to me that the
common analysis of why Pascal failed is incorrect. Remember that C was
backed by AT&T and all of the universities that were into the C source
code. If I recall correctly, "back in the day", Microsoft also promoted
C (MSC) over Pascal. Also, in the early days of microcomputing, Pascal
and C were both extended with features that made them look more like
very similar. IIRC, Turbo Pascal has pointers, inline assembly,
DOS-specific memory models, DOS-specific interrupt handling etc. There
was a big difference between Pascal taught in Programming 101 and used
in industry.

I propose that if Pascal had been the "standard" programming language
for DOS, Windows or Unix, today we would all use it and theorize why C
never took off.

I'm not saying language quality is *irrelevant*. If Javascript were a
better language then Python and Ruby might never have become so popular
because in theory, browser scripting is not that different than other
types of scripting. But Javascript is really not a good enough language
to find widespread use in medium sized or large applications. A language
needs to be "good enough" to become mainstream. But it doesn't have to
be "the best" (or the most flexible, or ...)

 Paul Prescod