From: Bob Calco <robert.calco@...>
Date: 2002-09-08T10:28:12+09:00
Subject: RE: Larry Wall's comments on Ruby

Austin:

%% I realise that I'm coming from a different point of view than your
%% stated goal (teaching novice programmrs), but for the life of me, I
%% can't see why Python would be easier to learn than Ruby. (After all,
%% isn't Python's OO bolted-on, too?)

No, it isn't bolted on a la Perl OO. For reasons that I leave to
psychologists to discern, Guido Van Rossum _chose_ to implement OO in Python
from the get-go such that:

	* There is no real encapsulation - all methods and data are public
	* every class method requires the explicit "self" first parameter
 	* etc.

Python was always OO insofar as its implementation of OO can be called OO.
Python's big claim to fame was that infernal indentation syntax. I suppose
dumping encapsulation, imposing code formatting, and making a visual
distinction between a class def and a regular old def by requiring "self" as
the first parameter (and other features) are _supposed_ to make the learning
curve for beginners easier, but I the actual value of these "features"
toward that end is suspect, to put it diplomatically.

-- Bob Calco

%%
%% -austin
%% -- Austin Ziegler, austin@halostatue.ca on 2002.09.07 at 20.34.46
%%
%%
%%