On Fri, 9 Jul 2004 19:17:32 +0900, Graham Nicholls
<graham / rockcons.co.uk> wrote:
> I had to say it!  I teach for LearningTree, so was able to attend a perl
> course for free.  I _hated_ perl - what a mess.  Then I saw that python was
> "perl done properly", so looked at that.  _Much_ better, but a few
> irritations.  Then I thought "I'll try ruby".  I did, but didn't have time
> to do much.  Got a couple of books - both very good, although I have some
> constructive criticisms for both (Programming Ruby, & The Ruby Way), and
> now I'm an expert (not!).  I love that everything's an object, so I can
> just do x.y.z.j.f combining methods - like this:
> 
> val=@data.fetch(datid.tr('~','$').sub(/\s*$/,'')
> 
> (I hope thats not considered bad form)  So much that I intuitively try works
> - which is great.

grab someone else and ask them, "is it obvious which object owns these
functions?"
to me, this does.
   data --> .fetch
   datid --> .tr
             .sub

but you appear to be missing a closing )
;-)

> I've not crossposted to c.l.python, as this (really) isn't a troll, but I'm
> coming to the conclusion that ruby is "python done properly".  But don't
> tell anyone - I don't want to be flamed senseless.
> Anyway, antirant over, back to work.
> Graham

i've been gushing about ruby lately too, and i went through a similar
experience.
first i tried perl because so many sysadmin and early web cgi
programmers were raving about it, but TMTOWTDI made reverse-engineer
learning perl from cpan rather evil.  (i had to learn that perl is
meant to be written, not read.)  then i became thoroughly frustrated
with C++ and python looked like "interpreted C++ with none of the
mess", but the underscores bothered me more than tabbed delimiting. 
then i looked into the history of programming languages, lisp, and why
alan kay invented smalltalk.  then i remember hearing about ruby and
let go of "great... an even more niche language".  now i feel smarter
when programming instead of dumber, as i did with C++.  a near-perfect
blend of perl, lisp, and smalltalk (+eiffel, so people say).  ruby
makes me happy.

> PS. 1 complaint - begin and end. I use vi (vim/gvim), and would prefer the
> use of braces so I can quickly go to the matching start/end block with %.
> Any suggestions? a #define equivalent, perhaps?

i agree with your one complaint.  maybe because C++ was the first
serious language i learned, maybe because { } looks more symmetrical
to me and take ~1/4 the number of keystrokes to input.

why are 'begin...end' and { } not always equivalent?

> --
> With Linux, the answer's always "Yes"

with a "but..."


-z