From: Peter Hickman <peter@...>
Date: 2003-07-16T23:47:39+09:00
Subject: Re: Keyword "with"

Mark J. Reed wrote:
> Given that one of Ruby's main inspirations is Perl (another
> being SmallTalk, obviously), and that Perl has, ahm, "borrowed"
> liberally from many other languages, it's not automatically
> unreasonable to add more borrowings to Ruby.  Each request should be
> considered on its own merits, not dismissed on the basis that the
> requestor is "obviously" only trying to make Ruby more Xlike where
> X is whatever language they are coming from.  

This I understand, but I like Ruby, it is very good. However I dislike 
Java and would be disappointed with Ruby becoming more Java like. If I 
wanted Java like I would use Java itself. At the moment I am coding an 
interface to my Ruby / Perl expert system in Tcl/Tk because it provides 
the features I require for the interface and I dont have to learn RubyTk 
and PerlTk and have the problem of duplicated functionallity (and the 
maintenance nightmare that that would involve).

I am not asking for Ruby to be more Tcl like.

If we really wanted a kitchen sink language we would drop Ruby here and 
now and start using Lisp and Ada. But no one likes to spend their day at 
the kitchen sink.

All I ask it that the request adds functionality to the language and not 
sugar. 'with', 'x++', 'elseif', 'new' and the rest are just plain sugar.