[REBOL] Re: SketchUp -> seeking Ruby overview in Rebolese
From: stasil213:y:ahoo at: 10-Aug-2004 21:48
Jason wrote...
Does anyone here have Ruby experience?
If so, I would very much appreciate any thoughts you have about Ruby from a
Rebol perspective.
At first glance it seems to be halfway between Python and REBOL.
Ruby code is short and readable, uses blocks with methods in very direct
powerful manner.
===
Here is the slanted view of a long-time old-fogey Smalltalk programmer (me)
who is dabbling with Rebol while searching for his next language...
===
Smalltalk, Forth, Tcl, LISP, Logo, and Rebol seem to be "special paradigm"
languages. Being object, stack, string, or list based (respectively), they
have a very simple basic syntax that allows most of the language to be
written in the language, including control structures. They have devoted
supporters (including me), but the special paradigms can lead to
non-standard syntax.
Perl, Ruby, and Rebol seem to be consciously thrown-together "collections of
what works" or "best practices" languages.
Rebol is unique in that it comes across both as a "special paradigm"
language with a very simple basic syntax, and also as a "collection of what
works" language, based on Carl's years of experience rather than some
academic principle.
Smalltalk and LISP are huge and bloated "image" based languages, and can't
talk easily to the world outside of their images. The rest are file based.
Perl, Python, Ruby, and Tcl seem to be popular scripting languages, with
large followings and many downloadable add-in modules.
Smalltalk, LISP, and Ruby are fully object oriented. Python is moving (the
migration is well thought out) to being fully OO. Rebol and Perl are sort
of OO. Standard Tcl and Forth are not.
Linux, Python, Ruby, and Rebol are guided by one genius. I think this is
good. Smalltalk stagnated in 1980, when the original Xerox Parc team
stopped development. Perl and Tcl were guided by one genius, but seem to be
drifting toward being guided by committee !!?? (this is my personal opinion
only)
Smalltalk has a great IDE. None of the other languages come close.
===
For personal programming, I am going with Rebol for now because it is fun,
interesting, and does lots of web stuff easily. If I were at a normal,
existing business, I would go with Python or Ruby, because they are more
mainstream, I like OO, they have lots of add-in modules, and they are still
guided by one individual. If I were a small start up, I might take a gamble
on Rebol, if I figured out a way it could make me lots of money.
===
???!!!???
Single programmers write languages for that are great for single
programmers. Teams of programmers don't write languages very well.
???!!!???
====
--Stan
