From: Samuel Williams <space.ship.traveller@...>
Date: 2010-03-30T22:04:55+09:00
Subject: Re: Programming Language Comparison

Dear Josh,

Those are all really good points.

Ruby does have many ways to do things. So does Perl. I wonder if this is really a disadvantage?

I guess it potentially makes the language tricky if different ways of doing things have subtly different implications.

Kind regards,
Samuel

On 31/03/2010, at 1:59 AM, Josh Cheek wrote:

> Another thing to consider is that Perl is being demerited for TIMTOWTDI, but
> Ruby is not. Yet how many ways are there to loop from 0 to 2 in Ruby?
> 
> results = Array.new
> 
> 3.times           { |i| results << i }
> 
> (0..2).each       { |i| results << i }
> 
> 0.upto(2)         { |i| results << i }
> 
> 0.step(2)         { |i| results << i }
> 
> (0..2).to_a.each  { |i| results << i }
> 
> for i in 0..2     do results << i end
> 
> i = 0
> while i <= 2
>  results << i
>  i+=1
> end
> 
> i = 0
> until i > 2
>  results << i
>  i+=1
> end
> 
> i = 0
> loop do
>  results << i
>  break if 2 < i+=1
> end
> 
> puts RUBY_VERSION
> results.join.scan /.../ do |result|
>  puts result
> end
> 
> 
> 
> There are also a few additional ways in Enumerable that aren't shown here
> b/c they don't work on 1.8.6
> 
> And I left out array based solutions, because while they will work in this
> small range, that is not what they are there for, and so will quickly become
> unmanageable. ie [0,1,2].each {} might work but is not scalable if you want
> to iterate the first hundred numbers, and is not dynamic if you want to be
> able to determine your range from variables.
> 
> -----
> 
> And I don't know enough about Perl to answer this, but I'd be interested to
> know from anyone who does, whether Perl is actually difficult to read, or
> whether that is just a consequence of certain styles of coding that get the
> most attention or have become idiomatic within the Perl community.