From: Ben Tilly <ben_tilly@...>
Date: 2000-12-13T13:38:25+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:7131] Re: Ruby in the US

merlyn@stonehenge.com (Randal L. Schwartz) wrote:
>
> >>>>> "Kevin" == Kevin Smith <kevinbsmith@yahoo.com> writes:
[...]
>For what it's worth, since a lot of people unfairly call me a Perl
>bigot, I'll say that what little I've seen of Ruby, I like...
[ good points snipped ]
>In the memespace of the web development world, selling Ruby will be a
>lot harder than selling Perl, and a lot of people think that selling
>Perl is now even hard, thanks to the incredible hype built up by the
>Java-press-engine machine and now the .NET counter-attack.

Also Perl has a lot of very good infrastructure like
Template::Toolkit.  Matching that will be very hard for Ruby
to do.  Very often languages need to be chosen based on what
is available now, and not what might happen down the road.

>I think it'd be better to make sure that the Perl and Ruby camps join
>together and recognize that the problem is not Perl v Ruby, but rather
>open-source v proprietary.  And on *that* issue, I *am* a bigot. :)

I wonder.  How hard would it be to write a Ruby-XS wrapper
so someone can embed a Ruby interpreter in Perl.  The point
being so that Ruby could be easily embedded in projects
implemented with Template::Toolkit.  Dunno how wrapping a
Perl interpreter in Ruby would go though.

>But I'm still a bit puzzled about the *point* of Ruby.  It's either
>Smalltalk without the IDE, or Perl without the CPAN and
>programmer/install base and wide ports, or Python without the annoying
>"it'll be indented THIS WAY or Guido will come and get you" feature.

How about Smalltalk with the handiness of Perl, Perl with
typed variables rather than typed operators, and Python with
closures?

>What do you want to accomplish with Ruby?

I want to get some perspective on language design.  Some of
my initial impressions are available at:

http://pub13.ezboard.com/fiwetheytheoryandpracticeofprogramming.showMessage?topicID=286.topic

(Hmmm...that essay might not do great things for Perl/Ruby
relations, but I think it raises an interesting point.)

Cheers,
Ben
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Get more from the Web.  FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com