From: Friedrich Dominicus <frido@...>
Date: 2002-08-27T15:41:26+09:00
Subject: Re: What New Language After Ruby?

William Djaja Tjokroaminata <billtj@z.glue.umd.edu> writes:

> 
> To me, C extension is really important, because if I turn out to like the
> new language a lot (like Ruby), I can really write a "real-life" code in
> it.  

I would argue that interfacing to C is a sort of "minimal" requirement
of any language. Some do it better some more worse

>Someone already gave me a comment of why not learning advanced C; for
> my purpose it is already a diminishing return.  A language like Ruby,
> on the other hand, makes writing a network simulator much easier.  And
> because network simulation takes so much computations, usually it is done
> in C/C++ or even Java.  
I don't buy that. Especiall not the Java argument. Java is usually
among the slowest languages and ther does exist a market for "native"
Java compilers not for nothing.



> Now I am wondering whether by learning one of the
> candidate languages, it will give me another dimension/angle in writing
> the network simulator, just as Ruby did.  (Actually not just Ruby, but
> also Tcl, Perl, and Python; but so far Ruby gives the most natural object
> model.)
Try Erlang. 

> 
> I haven't dropped Haskell yet; in one of the responses someone gave an
> example of how to write interface between Haskell and C.  I guess it is
> time for me to do the deeper research myself.  Thanks.
Haskell is a wonderful language, with very good ideas and it opens
your eyes to tackle programming from a different angle. I too suggest
Common Lisp, which has it's own merits.

Regards
Friedrich