From: MikkelFJ <mikkelfj-anti-spam@...>
Date: 2002-12-19T10:12:52+09:00
Subject: Re: help -- persuade my boss to adopt ruby


"Dan Sugalski" <dan@sidhe.org> wrote in message
news:a05200f04ba26ab38645c@[63.120.19.221]...
> At 6:51 AM +0900 12/19/02, MikkelFJ wrote:

> I'm not sure Dylan's a great example. It does have some pretty
> interesting optimizations, which took a number of very smart people a
> fair amount of effort. On the other hand, it is somewhat lacking as a
> general-purpose language, if its adoption is anything to go by.

Dylan got hit twice: first developed and dumped by Apple, then the
commercial compiler was developed along with a Lisp compiler. The company
got purchased by a larger company that dropped Dylan and continued the Lisp
compiler.
There are now two compilers, a commercial and an opensource - both are
resource constrained and as such Dylan is not a safe bet. Nor is Ruby or
Ocaml, except for the proven track records of immediate usefulness and speed
of new features. I'm afraid you cant just sit and wait for new features in
Dylan the same way, but I may be wrong. Anyway that was one unscientific
reason for to not go further along that path. But I think it deserves
better.

I do agree with you other points.

Mikkel