From: The Higgs bozo Date: 2008-10-10T01:46:26+09:00 Subject: Re: Why not adopt "Python Style" indentation for Ruby? David A. Black wrote: > > For one thing, and by definition, the world needs only one > pan-paradigmatic, syntax-agnostic language. Once there's one, there's > no need for a second one. One already exists: it's called Lisp. You've just described Lisp. > So then the question becomes: should Ruby > take on that role? Or, to look at it another way: should the existence > of the pan-paradigmatic language necessitate the death of an existing > language? And if so, should the doomed language be Ruby? > > Once you look at it that way, turning Ruby into language soup makes no > sense at all. Agreed. Ruby should not turn itself into Lisp! This begs a question, in my mind. Has anyone tried to implement Ruby in Lisp? (Though I know there are projects for the converse.) It would be a neat thing to do: generate Lisp code which is the Ruby AST. You automatically get N implementations of Ruby, from the N implementations of Lisp. Choose the best one according to whatever criteria, and use that for the first implementation-specific classes such as sockets. Claims that it would be too slow would need to be backed up with data. There is a near endless assortment of optimization techniques which may be used. Given SBCL is faster or slower than Java depending on the benchmark, it could potentially be much faster. The AST can be manipulated at run-time, in ways more far-reaching than the myopic hotspot algorithms. Potentially. -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.