Quoting Joe Mason <joe / notcharles.ca>:

> In article <89539780CB9BD51182270002A5897DF605ED006B / hqempn04.agedwards.com>,
> Volkmann, Mark wrote:
> > I think one of the main points of learning a new language each year is
> that
> > it should differ in some significant way from the languages you already
> > know.  Having a syntax that resembles Ruby may disqualify Scala.
> 
> Syntax isn't everything.  Scala has type inferencing, which is a pretty
> major difference.  (I'm tempted to say Ruby : Scala :: Python : Haskell,
> but that breaks down in several places.)

Your mentioning Haskell reminded me that I tried to learn it a couple of years
ago, signed up on the mailing list, etc., but ultimately lost interest because
the discussions focused on a /much/ higher level than they do here on the Ruby
list--arguments over language design, etc., with few mentions of using Haskell
to do anything productive. It's probably a vast improvement over Lisp, as far as
functional languages are concerned, but harder to grasp. I'm just as much a fan
of languages-for-languages'-sake as the next CS person, but I was /so/ pleased
to find Ruby som time later and see instantly how useful it is. But if anyone
else on the list is considering Haskell as their language of the year, I'll join
'em in trying to figure it out.

-- 
jason

:wq
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