From: William Djaja Tjokroaminata Date: 2002-09-10T01:31:46+09:00 Subject: Re: Ruby aesthetics Hi, I still feel that we are better off without alternatives in a computer language. To draw an analogy, C is logically very simple, it has only four (main) components: array, structure, function, and pointer. But from this minimal components, we can write almost any imaginable code (including Ruby itself). By the same analogy, I think Python derives its "magic" and attactiveness from its minimalist principle. When I write or read a Python code, my eyes see only five (main) code blocks: def, class, if, for, and while, and therefore it really "feels" that it is very easy to read or write a Python code. While it is probably not a really appropriate comparison, I feel that alternatives in programming languages have the same consequence as the use of macros in C to create aliases (as one wrote, "by using macros, we can write a Pascal-like code in C".) For people who never wrote a code in Python, I think it is really a good experience to do it. Probably the people here will not like the language (I myself have switched from Python to Ruby because of the fundamental language design), but the exercise is more to get a feeling on how a minimalist (and indentation-based) language compares. Regards, Bill ========================================================================== Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote: > |I am never happy with natural language metaphors for computer languages. > |Natural languages are HARD to learn (ask Larry Wall about Japanese!). > |Computer languages should strive to be much easier. Natural languages have > |many ambiguities in them. Computer languages must drive the ambiguities > |out. The rules defining natural languages are so complicated that > |linguists can't agree on them. > I do agree with the aspect of natural language you stated. But still, > my point about brain bits is unrelated with the aspect. I was talking > about alternatives in languages, not ambiguities. > matz.