From: Ben Tilly <ben_tilly@...>
Date: 2000-12-13T21:30:51+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:7141] Re: Ruby, Python, Eiffel and Smalltalk

ARIMA Yasuhiro <fit0298@fitec.co.jp> wrote:
>
>
>Welcome to Ruby world.
>Append some informations.
>
>israel raj thomas wrote:
> >
> > >Do you think that it would be possible to use Python as a Smalltalk
> > >replacement if an IDE existed that hid some of Python's limitations?
> >
> > Would it perhaps not be better to use Ruby ?
> > See below for information and for comparisons of Ruby, Python, Eiffel
> > and Smalltalk:

Please be very careful in this kind of advocacy.  Overly
aggressive recruiting by Python people of Perl people is
one of the basic reasons that the two groups have so much
hostility today.  The first time it is OK.  After a while
it becomes annoying.  After the people you are dealing
with have seen what you are peddling and rejected it for
some specific reason, it becomes really annoying.

Also advocacy of a language in a role it isn't ready for
is something that can result in bad experiences.  That
has the opposite effect from what you want.  Smalltalk
offers better performance, more maturity, a larger user
community, and better IDEs than either Ruby or Python.
Therefore offering either Ruby or Python as a replacement
for Smalltalk is rather likely to backfire.  OTOH
offering Ruby as a good scripting language for people who
like Smalltalk is probably a winner.  Ruby does have a
lot of similarities to Smalltalk, but is far more handy on
smaller problems.  (That happens to be a weakness for
Smalltalk.)

Match expectations to current capabilities.

>news:comp.lang.ruby
>
>http://www.ruby-lang.org/
>http://www.rubycentral.com/

I would add:

http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/ruby/

Cheers,
Ben
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