From: Peter Hickman <peter@...>
Date: 2002-08-23T01:32:17+09:00
Subject: Re: A Repeat: New Language After Ruby?


William Djaja Tjokroaminata wrote:

> Hi,
>
> In my opinion, Eiffel is being in the middle, i.e., its performance is
> below C but its syntax is not as short as Ruby.  Yes, there are some good
> object-oriented designs in Eiffel (such as the indistinguishable data
> access and function call, which is adopted by Ruby), but to me it is
> better to have two extremes than to have one in the middle.  For example,
> by combining Ruby and C, I can optimize the kernel in C (so that is is
> really fast) and provide user interface in Ruby (so that it is simple to
> use).  A specific example in network simulation is per-packet processing
> should be done in C, but the basic routing algorithm can be written in
> Ruby.
>

This 'middle' thing is why Python never quite clicked for me as a Perl 
programmer. It was better than Perl in many ways but not really that 
much better to have me switch. Ruby however, despite it's paucity of 
applications (CPAN continually saves my butt), was clearly better. I can 
live with having to write everything I need.

However, and there always is one, there is one thing that drags me back 
to Java which I despise. A cross platform GUI as standard. I think that 
this is what turned alot of people onto Java, I know it got me. Now if 
Ruby had one that was part of the standard install for all platforms 
(Windows, Linux, Macintosh as a minimum) then I could forget all about 
Java and clear some space on my bookshelf.

No Tk doesn't count!


[This might double post as Mozilla crashed on my first attempt]