> I was struck by the discrepancy between this quote from the Ruby man
> page:
>
>        If you want a language for easy object-oriented program-
>        ming, or you don't like the Perl ugliness, or you do like
>        the concept of lisp, but don't like too much parentheses,
>        Ruby may be the language of your choice.
>
> and this excerpt from one of the Ruby scripts in the build package for
> Ruby itself [1]:
>
>   File.foreach($config || "config.status") do |$_|
>     next if /^#/
>     if /^s%@(\w+)@%(.*)%g/
>       name = $1
>       val = $2 || ""
>       next if /^(INSTALL|DEFS|configure_input|srcdir)$/ =~ name
>       val.gsub!(/\$\{([^{}]+)\}/) { "$(#{$1})" }
>       CONFIG[name] = val
>     end
>   end
>

There isn't much discrepancy, though.  Most of my Perl scripts look like I
held down the Shift key and banged on the number keys with my eyes shut for
five minutes.  I often come back a week later and ask myself, "I *wrote*
that?  Thank God I left comments everywhere!"

Michael