From: Caleb Clausen <vikkous@...>
Date: 2010-08-24T01:35:15+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby Code Parsing

On 8/23/10, Chad Perrin <code@apotheon.net> wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 04:20:54PM +0900, Ryan Davis wrote:
>> On Aug 22, 2010, at 20:12 , Chad Perrin wrote:
>> >
>> > On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 08:38:40AM +0900, Caleb Clausen wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Ruby is designed to be easy for humans to read, which means it is not
>> >> easy for computers to parse. As opposed to say, perl, which is hard
>> >> for both humans and computers to parse. If you were to write down in
>> >> one email a complete set of rules, it would be a pretty long email.
>> >
>> > I find Perl pretty easy to parse.  Maybe yours is a personal problem.
>>
>> No, you do not find perl pretty easy to parse. Last time I checked, you
>> can NOT statically parse perl. You have to evaluate it in order to get
>> a proper parse. So, you find it pretty easy to evaluate. No easy task
>> for me, I'll admit, but there is no reason for you to be an ass about
>> it.
>
> Regardless of nitpicky phrasing, I found your comment about Perl kind of
> ass-ish.  It seems kind of ironic to be called an ass for pointing out
> that your problems with Perl may not be others' problems, when you make a
> categorical deprecating statement about Perl.

First of all, do not confuse me with Ryan.

My statement about perl was perfectly accurate, in addition to being
deprecatory.  Although perl has been an interesting experiment in
language design, it can at best be seen as  a rough draft for ruby. No
one, not even its mother, has ever claimed perl is beautiful. Why do
you think the symbol of perl is a camel?

What I mostly find unreadable about perl code are the many uses of
sigils, particularly dollar signs which interrupt the flow of the
narrative in perl programs. The special funnily-named global variables
($_, $\, etc) are pretty ugly too. Of course, ruby has these as well,
but they just don't seem to be needed as much. The fact that some
variables sometimes start with a $ and other times with a @ is also
disturbing. None of these are the reasons that make perl difficult for
programs to parse; those are entirely different problems.