From: Conrad Schneiker <schneiker@...>
Date: 2000-06-18T06:21:50-05:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:03500] Re: Python 3000 -> No, but there's 'R***'

Hi,

"Aahz Maruch" writes:
>
> In article <394BB8DE.AE1D6A7A@webtv.com>, balrog  <balrog@webtv.com>
wrote:
> >
> >Half-seriously, Ruby is nicer looking & acting;  it's part Python,
> >part Eiffel / Sather, with the quick & easy string handling of Perl.
>
> This is mainly addressed to comp.lang.ruby; I'm just including
> comp.lang.python because that's where this started:

Likewise.

> Y'know, those of you in the Ruby world who make a point of going around
> trashing other languages are probably doing more to hurt the acceptance
> of Ruby over the long haul than anything else. It's *rude*.

"Half-seriously ..." == "... going around trashing other languages..."????
"Half-seriously ..." == "... rude"????

Well, thanks anyway for your feedback, although it seems a little bit
over-the-top to me.

I for one have been pretty scrupulous about pointing out that Perl and
Python are for various reasons often more appropriate than Ruby.
Nevertheless, on the single FYI post that I made after the ruby-lang mail
list mirror was finally running and all the major domestic and foreign news
servers were at last all propagating it--i.e. at the time comp.lang.ruby
finally became a viable active newsgroup--you would never guess from the
ballistic responses that the respondents had bothered to read the first
couple of paragraphs of that post.

The Perl, Python, and Ruby newsgroups all carry discussions by their users
of what they variously view as their language's limitations, and I don't
think referring to such things amounts to trashing any of these languages or
being rude. Encouraging people who are dissatisfied with various aspects of
Perl or Python to check out Ruby hardly seems to amount to trashing Perl or
Python.

If someone on comp.lang.ruby wants to do something for which no suitable
Ruby module exists, I don't think it would be trashing Ruby, nor do I think
it would be rude, for you or anyone else to point out that they should check
out Perl or Python to solve their problem. Likewise for issues of
programming style, interpreter reliability, better error diagnostics,
integrated IDEs, more books, more English documentation, and so on.

> I was
> almost interested enough in Ruby at one point to check it out, but I
> have to say that the Attitude I've seen so far is even worse than the
> Perlers.

Hmm. Even though I mentioned that I still use Perl from time to time, and
made it clear that I thought Ruby was of value to some but by no means all
people, and invited no response, one of the more rabid Perlers nevertheless
accused me of trying to start a language war. I'm not sure if any Ruby
poster has stooped comparably low--at least not yet. :-) But of course I
would still never hold the posting of 1 or a few Perl hotheads against Larry
Wall, or Perl, or the large number of otherwise civil Perlers.

If the attitude of 1 or 2 or 3 people keeps you from checking out Ruby, it
seems to me that that sort of thinking amounts to sinking to the level of
the people you loathe, plus it seems to overgeneralize quite a bit from a
couple of recent data points. Obviously I don't want to encourage bad
attitudes, but what I have seen doesn't seem comparable to Perl fanaticism.
I happened to learn about Ruby on comp.lang.python last year in a series of
what seemed to me at the time to be very civil discussions. None of the more
recent postings has seemed notably less civil to me.

> It'd be real nice if the level-headed Ruby people restrained the
> hotheads.

Well, I'm not sure we (or perhaps they, in your apparent opinion) would
generally agree about who the hotheads are in this case :-) ... but in any
case I still encourage anyone who thinks that Perl and Python have been
unduly slighted to feel free to post their dissent on comp.lang.ruby. I'm
sure at least _some_ people will be somewhat more careful about how they
discuss Perl, Python, and Ruby as a result.

FYI, the generally explicitly and implicitly expressed opinion on
comp.lang.ruby has been (more or less) that Python is a much more readable
and a much better OO programming language than Perl.

Conrad