From: William Djaja Tjokroaminata <billtj@...>
Date: 2002-09-28T13:26:59+09:00
Subject: Re: R

Hi,

dblack@candle.superlink.net wrote:
> But they won't, because they'll never have incentive to.  And, even if
> this is just providing a shortcut, it's a shortcut for something that
> is generally considered poor style and unidiomatic Ruby.  (That's why
> it's very different from the attr_* shortcuts, which you mention I
> think in your next post.)

> I'm completely supportive of the idea of getting programmers in other
> languages to learn and (hopefully) use Ruby.  But at some point, it's
> important to affirm that there's such a thing as a Ruby idiom, a Ruby
> object model, even a Ruby programmer... and that it is no more
> incumbent on Ruby to mold itself, here and there, to the shape of
> other languages than it is incumbent on them to borrow language-level
> characteristics from Ruby.  I say this in the full knowledge that
> Ruby's design borrows things from other languages.  I feel nonetheless
> that Ruby should be "allowed" to occupy a solid place among those
> languages.

In principle I agree with you.  I am also aware of the danger of creating
so many dialects of Ruby, such as what happens in Lisp and Scheme.  That's
why this will be used only for experimentation, to see how a user
(probably just me) reacts.  Right now as much as possible my translator
will be compatible with Ruby; it is just how we "input" the source code
that is different, but the "output" code is 100% Ruby (as we know it now).

>> Also, to sell Ruby to the corporate world, probably "staticly/strongly
>> typed" has more a buzzword quality (ala Java).

> Isn't that a flat-out misrepresentation, though?

I don't know.  Sun was successful in selling Java.  I think we still need
some time to really convince people, that in general, dynamic typing is
better than static typing.

> Except... you've hit on an area where, from what I've seen, Ruby has
> the fewest problems of any programming language: namely, appeal.  Ruby
> has stolen the hearts and minds of thousands of programmers, often at
> first sight.  I've never seen or even heard of people taking to a
> language so readily and happily.  Ruby is probably #1 on the list of
> languages *not* in need of any kind of dressing-up, or watering down,
> to appeal to people.

I think most people in this newsgroup (including me) would probably agree
with above.  However, I don't know the actual statistics.  I am especially
interested in knowing how scientists/engineers react to Ruby.  At least I
think Python is very popular among a group of physicists.  I don't know
whether it is because they never see Ruby or because the minimalism
approach of Python has a real appeal to them.  At least personally, as I
am not a full time/advanced programmer and programming is just a tool to
get the end result (which is an optimum communications network design), I
tend to minimalism rather than "power programming".  For numerical
computations, really Fortran or C serves the purpose very well (we
just need three types: integer, double, and array :) ).  For network
simulations, however, that is rather different.

Regards,

Bill