On Wed, Feb 28, 2007 at 03:45:03AM +0900, Klaus Ramelow wrote: > > In my opinion the Community is most helpful but, by the numbers of > questions resp > problems, to me it seems a tremendeous waste of time (and thoughts) because > this shows that (also) ruby lacks the clarity (not only) I am looking for. > There would be much less questions and therefore more productivity, > if there would be a clarity in this language - using human language > resp. mnemonic - > like using Basic or Cobol or Pascal or D (or even Assembler). Okay, I'm confused -- you just compared Pascal and assembly language favorably to Ruby with regard to clarity and familiarity with human language. Have you actually looked at much Pascal code? If so: Have you actually looked at much Ruby code for the comparison? It's true that BASIC and COBOL tend to use words taken directly from English or made by mashing English language words together. There's more to easing the process of programming than that, however, and once you're working with algorithms more complex than a "Hello World" program, BASIC and COBOL start looking like hashed browns with catsup. My first, immediate, reaction was to label you a troll. I want to give you the benefit of the doubt, however. Perhaps you just failed to make your point clearly, and I'm missing something important as a result. Judging by my experience, however, your statements tend to imply the opposite of reality. You seem to be saying the sky is hard and the ground is blue, that baking soda is wet and water is abrasive. > > COMPUTER-LANGUAGES should not be treated as a religion but as a tool for > DOING SOME WORK FOR US. > We should not longue for a code consisting of the smallest number of > characters. > There should be very little questions about the language (how will it me > understand, > will it do what I want) but how can I implement the wanted logic using > human language > resp mnemonic so there will be a readable and simple maintainable code > (even from project independent poeple). Every time you learn a new language, you have to learn new things. Someone who knew Ruby would have to learn a bunch of new stuff trying to pick up Pascal as a new programming language. Same difference. The only reason there are fewer questions on a Pascal mailing list than here is that there are fewer new Pascal users on a Pascal mailing list. I agree that programming languages are tools, not religions. That's one of the reasons I favor Ruby over the languages with which you contrasted it. There are times when assembly language is more appropriate than Ruby, of course, but those times are few and far between because of the limitations of a language so difficult to use for complex operations (and even a five-line Ruby program that can be read and understood in less than a second performs some complex operations). Ruby provides abstraction which, like a longer lever, allows you to make bigger changes with less effort, but can get in the way of extreme fine-tuning of the sort you'd get with assembly language (or tweezers, for the lever analogy). If we wanted code consisting of the fewest possible characters, we'd be using something like Ada. We just want clean, readable, maintainable code, so we use Ruby. You made an off-hand reference to Python. I don't like Python much. Some of its idioms and some of its restrictions to "one right way" just rub me the *wrong way*. I don't like the syntax, I don't like the way it tries to be an object oriented language while still keeping some multi-paradigmatic language characteristics so that it seems a little like there's a seam through the middle of the language where it was stitched together. That's all my personal taste, though; it's subjective opinion. Looking at it objectively, Python is an excellent language. If you want evidence that I'm not just defending Ruby against your complaints because I like Ruby, here it is: I don't like Python. I don't want to have to program in that language for a living, ever. I may eventually want to learn more about the language, if only to better understand why I don't like it, but at the same time I don't want to have to look at Python source code. Despite all this, I recognize its clarity, ease of use, and clean design for those who *do* like it. Pretty much everything I've said about Ruby in this message, and the fact that your conclusions about what's "wrong" with Ruby simply don't seem to fit the facts, applies equally well to Python. As far as I can tell, you're somewhere out in left field. -- CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ] "There comes a time in the history of any project when it becomes necessary to shoot the engineers and begin production." - MacUser, November 1990