From: Clemens Hintze <c.hintze@...>
Date: 2000-12-02T19:10:01+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:6738] Re: perl and ruby

>>>>> "Joseph" == Joseph McDonald <joe@vpop.net> writes:

    Joseph> I'm a perl guy checking out ruby.  I wanted to benchmark a
    Joseph> few things that I do a lot of (using hashes, split,
    Joseph> etc...).  So here is a little snippet:

So may I welcome here :-)

I was also coming from Python/Perl to Ruby. Ironically it was a
Pythoneer that has interested me in Ruby ;-)

    Joseph> A couple of things I noticed which sort of annoyed me: I
    Joseph> had to predeclare the hash and the scaler.  x++ didn't

You had not, as Dave already explained ...

    Joseph> work (which I found out from the FAQ). x = x +1; gave a
    Joseph> syntax error.  interpolation with #{var} doesn't seem as
    Joseph> user friendly...

Dave and David have already answered your questions excellently. Let
me only state another thing ...

You should NOT see Ruby as similiar to Perl. In reality these both
languages are much different from each other. IMHO, there are only
three features that makes them looks familiar ...

o Special global variables like: $/, $\, $$, ...
  For many of them there are senseful replacements if you require the
  module English. But I hope requiring of that module would not be
  necessary in the future anymore (means these variables become
  standard).

o Some built-in creation syntax like: /.../, .., {}, [], ...
  Like in Perl you can use /.../ to describe an regexp; you can use
  '..' to indicate a range; etc. But unlike Perl, these all are true
  objects in the sense of Smalltalk.

  Ruby works only with references. Seeing this it would become clear
  to you, why you have to assign values to the variables. Ruby's 
  'h = {}' is more like Perl's '$h = {}' and therefore not a
  declaration but a definition and/or assignment.

o Statement modifier like: ... if, ... while

But despite from these three familarities, I would not call Ruby
similar to Perl. IMO, matz was very tricky with Ruby! He has let it
look like Perl to draw attention, but then if you realize the
differences you are so fascinated afterwards of its power and
flexibility that you do not want to leave it then ;-)

But seeing Ruby only from a Perl POV will not let you detect all the
power and elegance Ruby owns. The similarities will help you to hack
together some small scripts, but you should really try to give Ruby a
chance by following Ruby's way of doing. Do not try to program Perl or
Python in Ruby. You dismiss too much of its power then!


    Joseph> I'm not here to bash ruby, I am just starting to explore
    Joseph> it, it looks like a fun language, I just wanted to point
    Joseph> out some things that a perl person may find annoying in
    Joseph> the hopes that perhaps some of these things can be
    Joseph> changed.

Ruby IS NOT Perl. The sooner you realize it, the sooner you will be
ready to get used to its real power, elegance and fun!


    Joseph> thanks, -joe

Thank you for giving it a try. Although our community is growing,
there cannot be enough people using it. :-)

\cle