From: "Hal E. Fulton" <hal9000@...>
Date: 2002-09-29T09:45:10+09:00
Subject: Re: R (was: adding overload to ruby)

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <dblack@candle.superlink.net>
To: "ruby-talk ML" <ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org>
Sent: Saturday, September 28, 2002 4:27 PM
Subject: Re: R (was: adding overload to ruby)


> Hello --
> 
> On Fri, 27 Sep 2002, Nikodemus Siivola wrote:
> 
> > Now that Ruby >= (Smalltalk+Perl)/2, we need R >= (C+(C++)+Java)/3.
> > A better C is what I want, I guess.
> 
> The '=' is historically incorrect; the original assertion was:
> 
>    Ruby > (Smalltalk + Perl) / 2
> 
> :-)
> 
> (See <http://www02.so-net.ne.jp/~greentea/ruby/>.)

I just realized why this interesting statement
has always made my brain itch a little.

Assuming that the values of Smalltalk and Perl
are not equal (and who in the world, in any camp,
would say they are?) the average of the two has to
be greater than one of them and less than the other.

Since we're not told whether greentea prefers
Smalltalk or Perl (though I could guess), he is
in effect saying, "Ruby is better than one of
these languages and worse than the other; but I 
won't tell you which is which."

:)

Hal