[ruby-talk:6994] Re: Console use of Ruby/Perl compared to REBOL

[posted & mailed]

On Dec 9, Terrence Brannon said:

>But, still, the Perl/Ruby code will never be intuitive to the non-technical
>architect. And so we have computer application architects unable to
>actually implement the top-level design of large complex systems
>because they find the non-english nature of Ruby and Perl
>unintuitive. Either that or the implementation is as non-English-like
>as the things above.

Perhaps, then, you'd be happier with a language like OmniMark
(http://www.omnimark.com/) which touts itself as "the language to use
instead of Perl".

>1- Whitespace is a natural separator of items. At least some items,
>commas are better for separating list items. However, REBOL opts for
>blocks over commas. Example:
>apples: [ powerbook ibook mac-classic ]
>mac-classic: [ age: 20 weight: 20]
>ibook [age: 1 weight: 1]
>
>print mac-classic/age

This is very confusing -- why does REBOL use / as the member-to-data
operator?  If you want an english-looking method (which I find difficult
for non-English-speaking people to like), perhaps REBOL should do

  print mac-classic's age

where the 's postfix operator signifies the next term is going to be an
attribute/key/whatever.  It even allows for cascading.

  mac: [ dimension: [ height: 10 width: 12 ] weight: 14 ]
  print mac's dimension's height

Just a thought.  But now it looks like you're programming in English.

And that / is now apparently quite overloaded.  It does division, too,
doesn't it?  I dunno.  Something doesn't vibe with me.

-- 
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