Re: Thoughts on Ruby

On Sun, Nov 03, 2002 at 10:57:29AM +0900, Enric Lafont wrote:
> Don't get me wrong, I understand that Ruby is a young language that
> needs some maturing,
[...]
> I want to make some suggestions for future releases,
[...]
> I'm still learning, and I've a loooong way before understand
> everyting. I'm just looking for answers.

Are you trying to improve your understanding to fit Ruby or are you
trying to improve Ruby to fit your understanding?  

Beware, because it really looks like the latter, in spite of the
closing sentence: you're asking people not to be rude to you, yet
you're being rude by throwing judgement at what you admittedly aren't
familiar with.

Everyone here knows that it's done in good faith and nobody will flame
you; thankfully Ruby has got a nice community and anyway most of us
wondered the same things once.  I suggest you look through the
archives, because the answers to your questions are all there, and
follow Hal's `ninety days' advice.  That way, people won't get annoyed
and think ``here's another newcomer knowing nothing about Ruby and
presuming he can improve it''.  Ok?


/me turns 180 degrees and speaks to the rest of ruby-talk:


Folks, what do you do when you see code like this?


    c1 = 3 * 3 * Math::PI

    c2 = 6 * 6 * Math::PI

    c3 = 21 * 21 * Math::PI


You refactor, right?


    def area(r)
      return r * r * Math::PI
    end

    c1 = area(3)
    c2 = area(6)
    c3 = area(21)


So we've got wisdom in programming.  <trolling>Can we please apply it
in life, too?</trolling>

It's simply too much to leave the list for a couple of days and find
half a hundred messages resurrecting topics (and beating them to death
again) such as:

    - Alternatives in syntax or `There is more than one way to write
      it'
    - Overloading '='
    - Declaring variables
    - Compiling Ruby to bytecode or whatever

First it was because Ruby is different than Pythong, then because it
is different than C++, now because it is different than Smalltalk,
tomorrow because it is different than God knows what.

Can we (or at least those who still have energy to answer, and yes I'm
cowardly leaving myself out) refactor this recurring `human code' into
a wiki or whatever, and redirect people there?  We don't want
ruby-talk to become ruby-design-advocacy, right?  And we don't want
matz to waste his time justifying design decisions (which thankfully
he does very seldom already)?

William's ``List of things that newcomer to Ruby should know'' does a
great job of satisfying the practical concerns (``How does it work
like...?'').  Something is needed for the philosophical/theoretical
side (``Why is it like...?'').

Does this make sense?


Massimiliano