From: David Masover <ninja@...>
Date: 2009-10-10T01:43:30+09:00
Subject: Re: Poll on Eval in Ruby.

On Thursday 08 October 2009 08:15:06 am Kazimir Majorinc wrote:
> I want to
> compare opinion of Ruby and Lisp programmers on eval.
> ...
> If you want to contribute few seconds, the poll is
> on my blog, on the top of the right column.
>
> http://kazimirmajorinc.blogspot.com

There wasn't an option for "Absolutely essential for the one time out of a 
billion you actually need it. Otherwise, avoid it entirely."

I can't remember the last time I used eval directly in Ruby, and I've seen it 
maybe once or twice in library code. I've also seen it abused by people who 
really should know better. 90% of the time you find yourself reaching for eval, 
you're Doing It Wrong. Another 9% of the time, you're working around a missing 
language feature, and it'd be better to fix that feature, or at least bury your 
use of eval deep in a library.

But there was the time I used Javascript on HD-DVD, which had many 
limitations, including not having eval. And many of its other limitations 
could've been worked around if there had been an eval. A simple example: 
Downloading and executing code was complex and often disruptive -- eval 
would've made it trivial.

So... I avoid languages that don't have eval. But I avoid using eval in the 
languages I use. Does that make sense?