But the trouble with big problems can't be just that they promise no immediate reward and might cause you to waste a lot of time. If that were all, they'd be no worse than going to visit your in-laws. There's more to it than that. Big problems are terrifying. There's an almost physical pain in facing them. It's like having a vacuum cleaner hooked up to your imagination. All your initial ideas get sucked out immediately, and you don't have any more, and yet the vacuum cleaner is still sucking.
..is very revealing. It's almost like you're explaining why Arc isn't finished yet. No? I stand to make much progress by contemplating your essay and hopefully overcoming my own fears enough to accomplish my own goals. But you might want to look in the mirror too. Thanks for the great essays though; even if they're procrastination at its best.:)
I've got 8+ years MS tools based experience and 2+ years with Java (and some Python and Ruby thrown in for good measure), and I would totally agree. Neither C# or Java is perfect. They're both strongly typed, proprietary, virtual machine environments. Neither one is true open source (despite the rich set of open source applications developing around both). And neither one is appreciably better or more powerful than the other across the board.
The question comes down to economics (which one do you know you'll be able to get a job using) and preference (which tool set do you like better Visual Studio 2003 or {Eclipse | JDeveloper | JBuilder | IntelliJ | NetBeans | WSAD | ?}). You have to go with the one that meets those two criteria. Neither choice is bad and no one gets fired for choosing either of the two.
Oh, and fer-cryin-out-loud: don't choose something because you think it will make someone else happy or make you seem more "uber geeky" or whatever. Just do it for you and the rest will follow. And whatever you may think now, you are NOT married to this choice. That "wall" that everyone seems to imagine between Java vs..NET is not a real technical barrier; just a cultural one.
Yes, well a poorly designed or denormalized database will allow duplicate rows. But a normalized database will not have duplicate rows. If you consider yourself a "software guy" you really should go read up on normalization. With relational databases being as prevalent as they are today, it's just about as important to know about normalization as it is to know about boolean logic.
..an expert on the subject (yes, tongue in cheek; no worries) - I'm curious: Which one would you use?
Actually, let me stack this up in a little more clear fashion for you. I've been thinking about putting together a startup. I have looked pretty much at every viable open source web framework in existence. I am very well versed with.NET as well and, to a lesser extent, Java web frameworks.
I am finding the choice of which framework to use for a startup (focusing on web applications) to be absolutely impossible. They are all great in their own ways. To summarize the leading candidates:
DJango TurboGears Ruby on Rails ASP.NET on DotNet 2.0 (to which I have easy access; so cost is not a factor)
So, which would you choose?
BTW - I purposely have not focused on proprietary frameworks other than the ones I already know. If I'm going to stretch myself in new directions, I would prefer to ensure that experience is with open source frameworks. Also, learning curve on any of the above options is also not a factor. I've done small projects with Python and Ruby, as well as my regular work with DotNet.
..is to use paper. Use a piece of paper and pencil or pieces of construction paper that are then labeled by hand, arranged on a surface, and then affixed with tape when it's done. It's a very hands-on way to do it and users are immediately comfortable with it and not intimidated. Or just use a dry erase whiteboard. That works pretty well too.
When your users can comfortably pretend to use the application by talking through the drawings/cutouts, THEN you put it into your functional specification document in a couple different ways:
1. take a picture and paste the pic OR 2. "transcribe" the prototype into MS Access or the VB form designer or whatever (with NO functionality) and paste a screen shot of that into the document
It is ALWAYS going to be more satisfying to construct your operating environment from the ground up so you can understand every nuance, every feature, and ensure that it is fully optimized for your situation. However this is, for the most part, something only an IT geek will enjoy.
Think of it this way: Car geeks are never satisfied with a stock car straight from the factory. They will always tweak it at the very least. They may even rebuild it from scratch. Most folks won't bother though, they just want to get in the car and go.
And that is where a distro like SUSE fits in. It gives you an alternative to a proprietary OS like Windows XP or OS X, but doesn't require much knowledge to get running.
Let me reiterate a key point above: Windows and OS X are proprietary OSs and to be avoided at all costs by anyone who holds dear the ideals of OSS. OS X is not an open system. If you think it is, then go ahead and try to port it to another machine architecture. Should you succeed, Apple will quickly remind you of the proprietary nature of OS X.
Everywhere I go, I recommend Microsoft's very latest offerings knowing full well that they are not ready for the light of day and that a feeling of dissatisfaction, no hatred, of Microsoft can only come of recommending a product which is so early in its life cycle, which only the technically savvy will bother to try at this early juncture anyway. At the same time, I leave bitter reminders everywhere of previous generations of products which were likewise wronged early in their lives by my overeager recommendations.
Everywhere I go, I foment the dislike, the bitterness, and the fear of Microsoft's supposed dominion over us all. And I am served....
How am I served? Am I served because only the most bright, the most sensitive, the most pure among the technical ranks will bother to care. I am served because they turn away in disgust and leave this market. I am served because the users ultimately don't care and continue using the products I nurture through my evil machinations.
I am served because you are no longer here. I can now do with your users as I like. I can turn them to my ways, make them dependent, and continue to keep them for myself. For my customers. For my profit. For my entertainment.
Once you have "a real job", you not only can afford the games, but it's cheaper to just buy them. After all, with all that time you would waste obtaining an infringing copy could be better spent working some overtime or moonlighting.
And I'm not even talking about the discount bin games here either. If you put those into the mix, the micro-economics of it get even more skewed in favor of purchasing.
I've done this myself. In my case, it was to automate a job that queried a SQL Server and synchronized a file system with the database (think VERY crude content management here) using Python 2.3. os.walk() is your friend!:+)
If you need to do image manipulation too, then you might also want to check out a tool like ThumbsPlus Commander (http://www.cerious.com/tpcommand.shtml). You can probably also use this from Python with Win32 extensions.
You know, you can still have fun putting solutions together under Windows. It doesn't have to be a bad experience just because it's not OS X.
I agree with "MMOGs are bad, but it's a compelling enough genre that people suffer through.". I agree with that because I've played the game poorly at times, and it can be a drag.
But the point of MMOG is to emphasize the teamwork and camaraderie. If you're just grinding solo all the time, it's no fun. Socialize a little though and open up to some folks and the game just changes entirely and becomes fun again. Solo can be fun too, but my best experiences in WoW have occurred in a group. Having even just one other person along for the ride makes a ton of difference.
FYI - JSON looks *very* similar in intent and execution to YAML (www.yaml.org). Both of them are a response to obese XML. As far as I can tell, the *only* advantage (aside from market inertia) that XML has over either of them is namespaces.
...but Office 2k3 seems to run faster than Office XP, with more features
I'm going to have to vouch for that as well. I keep Word mapped to Ctrl-Alt-W for quick clipboard paste spell checks and the like. By the time my finger is back on the spacebar, Word is up. Granted, that's the way "it should be", but little stuff like that makes using Office so much more of a pleasure that I even dumped Office 2000 in favor of Office 2003 (which I said I would never do as I didn't really need the new features in 2003).
Well, with OpenLaszlo, that's a decent option these days. If the browser is Mozilla based, you could also use XUL. Then there's always the DHTML/AJAX option. And then there's Curl. Etc.
Except for DHTML/AJAX all the other options (including Java) require a browser plugin. Usually, you can't trust your client to have this plugin already (including Flash if you're using newish features), so you're stuck getting your clients on to that plugin before you can deploy anyway.
As far as Java being the only decent option, I dunno about that. I've seen some very cool things done with all the above and there are options for this that I half remember but haven't bothered to look up.
If that's your "secret" then you need to get out more.:+) Seriously, give Ruby a try. I think it will quite easily scratch the itch you're expressing. It has none of the confusion surrounding it that JavaScript does and it's quite a worthy desktop application and web application language. Oh, and if you're going to give Ruby a try and aren't totally addicted to Emacs or vim at this point, then give the Arachno IDE for Ruby (at http://www.ruby-ide.com/) a spin. It's not free, but it is cheap.
FYI - Learning Java can also be worth your time; it's not so bad. But really, if you're going to have your application execute on the client in a browser, then Java really isn't a good choice these days. (Although I'm sure some would beg to differ; it is *possible* after all. I just don't recommend it.)
I agree completely with your definition of a a real-time system. What I was trying to say is that a general purpose system can not, by definition, be real time about everything it does. Therefore, it would have to be real-time about some specific characteristic(s), and the rest of the system's performance would have to vary as needed in order to meet the actual RT requirements.
I don't dispute your friends' findings, but I'm wondering why a RT based OS would really improve the user experience?
Here's why I ask: A RT system is typically real time for some dedicated purpose. Not all pieces of the system have to be RT; just the important bits. Now, an average user PC is NOT a specialized device at all. It can be running a number of applications and, except for cases where a given process has a higher priority, all the processes typically get an opportunity for equal time from the CPU. A desktop system with a RT OS would also fit this description too, right?
Now, given that: where's the RT aspect in all of this? What's actually RT in this situation? The pre-emptive multitasking loop? The UI event/response loop? The IO loop (assuming you could describe it that way)? The video update loop? What about this would give the user a better experience?
I found his blog a little interesting because his true irritation appears to be the low quality of WinTel pre-packaged hardware as opposed to Microsoft Windows.
And personally, I find THAT to be a little irritating. He states that I have decided to look at PC/WinTel Security from a Systems Engineering View (SEV) - the world and discipline I grew up in at the turn of the last century. But then, he sites a string of (admittedly unfortunate) anecdotes. How is that a systems view?
Winn Schwartau appears to be shilling for Apple. Seriously man, just show us the check Apple sent you so we can rest assured that you haven't gone all soft in the head. At least then we would know you're being rational and that, every time the syllables WinTel leaves your lips, that we should just stop listening.
I guess I'm irritated with his position because of its spectacularly uninformative stance. I thought I was going to hear about all the good reasons WinTel really did suck from a security standpoint (even despite Microsoft's recent considerable efforts to resolve this). Or maybe I was going to hear about how OS X really does rock from a security standpoint (aside from the vaguely true but unquantifiable "well, it's like Unix so it must be better"). But to get none of the above just so he can rant an opinion?
Why would you invent "Yet Another Templating System" when there are about 3 dozen good ones out there for a variety of languages? Seriously, unless you've moved your framework up the abstraction ladder somehow (like for instance being able to specify entire complex forms in just a line or two of code along the lines of Ruby on Rails) you're just attempting to lock your customers in to something for which no one else may even have the source or documentation.
FWIW - I've been struggling with choosing between Python and Ruby for some personal projects. These two sites should help tremendously since, if I go by which one I enjoy reading more, then I have a winner.
Well, I do appreciate your answers. You've included information here that I haven't read about elsewhere, so it is much appreciated.
That said, I find all of this depressing (yet not surprising) as well.
Re: Python - I give Guido a LOT of credit. There is finally a ubiquitous usable programming language out there that obviates the need for Perl. I have nothing against Perl or Larry Wall, I just find Perl totally unusable; which explains my original obsession with Python. But, as you note, Python isn't tending towards being more elegant over time; it's tending towards more readability/usability/mass appeal. FWIW, I don't think that's all bad. I understand his reluctance about a macro facility. It's not only difficult to use properly; it will probably be difficult to implement in an infixed syntax, no? Given that it's not on his personal wish-list, I understand his reluctance.
Re: i18n - I'm not surprised about Matz's attitude on this given the ethnocentrism for which the Japanese are infamous (heh heh - I'm in the US: "Pot meet kettle. Kettle meet pot."). However, I don't see how it would impact my own use of Ruby. Wouldn't the fact that a language like Ruby can handle Japanese automatically (via Unicode UTF-8 I assume though I have to admit to ignorance in this respect) mean that it could handle pretty much any other language easily?
Re: Ruby performance - FYI, my own benchmarks have shown Ruby to be around 20 - 50% slower than Python. I was willing to overlook performance issues for the time being as this won't be an issue for *most* of the things I do and I ass|u|me that it's being considered for improvement. Whether I'm right or wrong about that, I don't know.
Re: Suffering the costs - Well, if you were in my shoes and starting this little quest from scratch as it were and given what you know today, what would you do? The goal isn't just to find an interesting language and play with it. I would also like to be able, should any of my ideas pan out sufficiently, to be able to:
-Open source and/or commercialize parts of what I'm doing in a way that's completely useful to some set of future users without substantial concerns about:
-presentability (no cheese allowed; I think you know what I mean)
-large runtime royalties (hello Franz and co!)
-extreme performance issues
-licensing issues with run-times or royalties
-portability (fairly important these days)
-etc.
-Program to a variety of target profiles (desktop, PDA, web) for starters; embedded is optional for me.
-Have available a sizeable set of APIs for common tasks. Writing yet another XML parser or web framework might be a fun learning exercise; but it's no way to get real work done.
So, anyway, I guess I'm just thinking this all through "out loud". I'm probably just hoping for too much, but if there's one thing I've learned the hard way it's "hope for little; receive little".
Sorry for the OT posting, but I saw your reply to the above-titled thread and I didn't get a chance to continue the conversation with you before posting was turned off.
Anyway, you mentioned Python in your post, but I was wondering if you had tried Ruby yet and, if so, how it compares to Python and Lisp in your experience. I have used Python with good results in the past, but I've become dismayed by some of its warts. Now, having given thought to Lisp and other options, Ruby seems like the best choice with a good mixture of ideas from all over (including Lisp and Smalltalk if what I've read is correct).
So, as someone who appears to be a a(n) (ex?)-Lisper, I was wondering how Ruby measured up. Python may have a "faint shadow" of the power of CL, but where do you think Ruby rests in the "power continuum"? And by that I mean the abstraction power starts somewhere like QBasic with a measure of 1, and ends with Lisp with a measure of 10. (Is 10 accurate? Is Lisp really the conceivably best way to construct a powerful abstract language?)
Slashdot Mirror
Let me point out that this quote:
:)
But the trouble with big problems can't be just that they promise no immediate reward and might cause you to waste a lot of time. If that were all, they'd be no worse than going to visit your in-laws. There's more to it than that. Big problems are terrifying. There's an almost physical pain in facing them. It's like having a vacuum cleaner hooked up to your imagination. All your initial ideas get sucked out immediately, and you don't have any more, and yet the vacuum cleaner is still sucking.
..is very revealing. It's almost like you're explaining why Arc isn't finished yet. No? I stand to make much progress by contemplating your essay and hopefully overcoming my own fears enough to accomplish my own goals. But you might want to look in the mirror too. Thanks for the great essays though; even if they're procrastination at its best.
Best of luck!
I've got 8+ years MS tools based experience and 2+ years with Java (and some Python and Ruby thrown in for good measure), and I would totally agree. Neither C# or Java is perfect. They're both strongly typed, proprietary, virtual machine environments. Neither one is true open source (despite the rich set of open source applications developing around both). And neither one is appreciably better or more powerful than the other across the board.
.NET is not a real technical barrier; just a cultural one.
The question comes down to economics (which one do you know you'll be able to get a job using) and preference (which tool set do you like better Visual Studio 2003 or {Eclipse | JDeveloper | JBuilder | IntelliJ | NetBeans | WSAD | ?}). You have to go with the one that meets those two criteria. Neither choice is bad and no one gets fired for choosing either of the two.
Oh, and fer-cryin-out-loud: don't choose something because you think it will make someone else happy or make you seem more "uber geeky" or whatever. Just do it for you and the rest will follow. And whatever you may think now, you are NOT married to this choice. That "wall" that everyone seems to imagine between Java vs.
Yes, well a poorly designed or denormalized database will allow duplicate rows. But a normalized database will not have duplicate rows. If you consider yourself a "software guy" you really should go read up on normalization. With relational databases being as prevalent as they are today, it's just about as important to know about normalization as it is to know about boolean logic.
WoW is definately _NOT_ the best MMORPG. (I've been playing since the Beta.)
So, which one is the best?
..an expert on the subject (yes, tongue in cheek; no worries) - I'm curious: Which one would you use?
.NET as well and, to a lesser extent, Java web frameworks.
Actually, let me stack this up in a little more clear fashion for you. I've been thinking about putting together a startup. I have looked pretty much at every viable open source web framework in existence. I am very well versed with
I am finding the choice of which framework to use for a startup (focusing on web applications) to be absolutely impossible. They are all great in their own ways. To summarize the leading candidates:
DJango
TurboGears
Ruby on Rails
ASP.NET on DotNet 2.0 (to which I have easy access; so cost is not a factor)
So, which would you choose?
BTW - I purposely have not focused on proprietary frameworks other than the ones I already know. If I'm going to stretch myself in new directions, I would prefer to ensure that experience is with open source frameworks. Also, learning curve on any of the above options is also not a factor. I've done small projects with Python and Ruby, as well as my regular work with DotNet.
..SCO.
;)
Jerk.
..is to use paper. Use a piece of paper and pencil or pieces of construction paper that are then labeled by hand, arranged on a surface, and then affixed with tape when it's done. It's a very hands-on way to do it and users are immediately comfortable with it and not intimidated. Or just use a dry erase whiteboard. That works pretty well too.
When your users can comfortably pretend to use the application by talking through the drawings/cutouts, THEN you put it into your functional specification document in a couple different ways:
1. take a picture and paste the pic
OR
2. "transcribe" the prototype into MS Access or the VB form designer or whatever (with NO functionality) and paste a screen shot of that into the document
And that's it. Try it. Your users will thank you.
It is ALWAYS going to be more satisfying to construct your operating environment from the ground up so you can understand every nuance, every feature, and ensure that it is fully optimized for your situation. However this is, for the most part, something only an IT geek will enjoy.
Think of it this way: Car geeks are never satisfied with a stock car straight from the factory. They will always tweak it at the very least. They may even rebuild it from scratch. Most folks won't bother though, they just want to get in the car and go.
And that is where a distro like SUSE fits in. It gives you an alternative to a proprietary OS like Windows XP or OS X, but doesn't require much knowledge to get running.
Let me reiterate a key point above: Windows and OS X are proprietary OSs and to be avoided at all costs by anyone who holds dear the ideals of OSS. OS X is not an open system. If you think it is, then go ahead and try to port it to another machine architecture. Should you succeed, Apple will quickly remind you of the proprietary nature of OS X.
Yeah, that'll work. Because talented leads love to write documentation for 6 months at a time. No, really they do...
I see my evil plan is working just fine.
Everywhere I go, I recommend Microsoft's very latest offerings knowing full well that they are not ready for the light of day and that a feeling of dissatisfaction, no hatred, of Microsoft can only come of recommending a product which is so early in its life cycle, which only the technically savvy will bother to try at this early juncture anyway. At the same time, I leave bitter reminders everywhere of previous generations of products which were likewise wronged early in their lives by my overeager recommendations.
Everywhere I go, I foment the dislike, the bitterness, and the fear of Microsoft's supposed dominion over us all. And I am served....
How am I served? Am I served because only the most bright, the most sensitive, the most pure among the technical ranks will bother to care. I am served because they turn away in disgust and leave this market. I am served because the users ultimately don't care and continue using the products I nurture through my evil machinations.
I am served because you are no longer here. I can now do with your users as I like. I can turn them to my ways, make them dependent, and continue to keep them for myself. For my customers. For my profit. For my entertainment.
Run punk. Run.
Once you have "a real job", you not only can afford the games, but it's cheaper to just buy them. After all, with all that time you would waste obtaining an infringing copy could be better spent working some overtime or moonlighting.
And I'm not even talking about the discount bin games here either. If you put those into the mix, the micro-economics of it get even more skewed in favor of purchasing.
I've done this myself. In my case, it was to automate a job that queried a SQL Server and synchronized a file system with the database (think VERY crude content management here) using Python 2.3. os.walk() is your friend! :+)
If you need to do image manipulation too, then you might also want to check out a tool like ThumbsPlus Commander (http://www.cerious.com/tpcommand.shtml). You can probably also use this from Python with Win32 extensions.
You know, you can still have fun putting solutions together under Windows. It doesn't have to be a bad experience just because it's not OS X.
Best of luck!
I agree with "MMOGs are bad, but it's a compelling enough genre that people suffer through.". I agree with that because I've played the game poorly at times, and it can be a drag.
But the point of MMOG is to emphasize the teamwork and camaraderie. If you're just grinding solo all the time, it's no fun. Socialize a little though and open up to some folks and the game just changes entirely and becomes fun again. Solo can be fun too, but my best experiences in WoW have occurred in a group. Having even just one other person along for the ride makes a ton of difference.
FYI - JSON looks *very* similar in intent and execution to YAML (www.yaml.org). Both of them are a response to obese XML. As far as I can tell, the *only* advantage (aside from market inertia) that XML has over either of them is namespaces.
...but Office 2k3 seems to run faster than Office XP, with more features
I'm going to have to vouch for that as well. I keep Word mapped to Ctrl-Alt-W for quick clipboard paste spell checks and the like. By the time my finger is back on the spacebar, Word is up. Granted, that's the way "it should be", but little stuff like that makes using Office so much more of a pleasure that I even dumped Office 2000 in favor of Office 2003 (which I said I would never do as I didn't really need the new features in 2003).
YMMV of course....
Well, with OpenLaszlo, that's a decent option these days. If the browser is Mozilla based, you could also use XUL. Then there's always the DHTML/AJAX option. And then there's Curl. Etc.
Except for DHTML/AJAX all the other options (including Java) require a browser plugin. Usually, you can't trust your client to have this plugin already (including Flash if you're using newish features), so you're stuck getting your clients on to that plugin before you can deploy anyway.
As far as Java being the only decent option, I dunno about that. I've seen some very cool things done with all the above and there are options for this that I half remember but haven't bothered to look up.
Happy hunting!
If that's your "secret" then you need to get out more. :+) Seriously, give Ruby a try. I think it will quite easily scratch the itch you're expressing. It has none of the confusion surrounding it that JavaScript does and it's quite a worthy desktop application and web application language. Oh, and if you're going to give Ruby a try and aren't totally addicted to Emacs or vim at this point, then give the Arachno IDE for Ruby (at http://www.ruby-ide.com/) a spin. It's not free, but it is cheap.
FYI - Learning Java can also be worth your time; it's not so bad. But really, if you're going to have your application execute on the client in a browser, then Java really isn't a good choice these days. (Although I'm sure some would beg to differ; it is *possible* after all. I just don't recommend it.)
Have fun!
I agree completely with your definition of a a real-time system. What I was trying to say is that a general purpose system can not, by definition, be real time about everything it does. Therefore, it would have to be real-time about some specific characteristic(s), and the rest of the system's performance would have to vary as needed in order to meet the actual RT requirements.
I don't dispute your friends' findings, but I'm wondering why a RT based OS would really improve the user experience?
Here's why I ask: A RT system is typically real time for some dedicated purpose. Not all pieces of the system have to be RT; just the important bits. Now, an average user PC is NOT a specialized device at all. It can be running a number of applications and, except for cases where a given process has a higher priority, all the processes typically get an opportunity for equal time from the CPU. A desktop system with a RT OS would also fit this description too, right?
Now, given that: where's the RT aspect in all of this? What's actually RT in this situation? The pre-emptive multitasking loop? The UI event/response loop? The IO loop (assuming you could describe it that way)? The video update loop? What about this would give the user a better experience?
I found his blog a little interesting because his true irritation appears to be the low quality of WinTel pre-packaged hardware as opposed to Microsoft Windows.
And personally, I find THAT to be a little irritating. He states that I have decided to look at PC/WinTel Security from a Systems Engineering View (SEV) - the world and discipline I grew up in at the turn of the last century. But then, he sites a string of (admittedly unfortunate) anecdotes. How is that a systems view?
Winn Schwartau appears to be shilling for Apple. Seriously man, just show us the check Apple sent you so we can rest assured that you haven't gone all soft in the head. At least then we would know you're being rational and that, every time the syllables WinTel leaves your lips, that we should just stop listening.
I guess I'm irritated with his position because of its spectacularly uninformative stance. I thought I was going to hear about all the good reasons WinTel really did suck from a security standpoint (even despite Microsoft's recent considerable efforts to resolve this). Or maybe I was going to hear about how OS X really does rock from a security standpoint (aside from the vaguely true but unquantifiable "well, it's like Unix so it must be better"). But to get none of the above just so he can rant an opinion?
Phooey..
Why would you invent "Yet Another Templating System" when there are about 3 dozen good ones out there for a variety of languages? Seriously, unless you've moved your framework up the abstraction ladder somehow (like for instance being able to specify entire complex forms in just a line or two of code along the lines of Ruby on Rails) you're just attempting to lock your customers in to something for which no one else may even have the source or documentation.
Care to elaborate on what you feel it's lacking?
I was wondering about that. Thank you!
FWIW - I've been struggling with choosing between Python and Ruby for some personal projects. These two sites should help tremendously since, if I go by which one I enjoy reading more, then I have a winner.
Well, I do appreciate your answers. You've included information here that I haven't read about elsewhere, so it is much appreciated.
:
That said, I find all of this depressing (yet not surprising) as well.
Re: Python - I give Guido a LOT of credit. There is finally a ubiquitous usable programming language out there that obviates the need for Perl. I have nothing against Perl or Larry Wall, I just find Perl totally unusable; which explains my original obsession with Python. But, as you note, Python isn't tending towards being more elegant over time; it's tending towards more readability/usability/mass appeal. FWIW, I don't think that's all bad. I understand his reluctance about a macro facility. It's not only difficult to use properly; it will probably be difficult to implement in an infixed syntax, no? Given that it's not on his personal wish-list, I understand his reluctance.
Re: i18n - I'm not surprised about Matz's attitude on this given the ethnocentrism for which the Japanese are infamous (heh heh - I'm in the US: "Pot meet kettle. Kettle meet pot."). However, I don't see how it would impact my own use of Ruby. Wouldn't the fact that a language like Ruby can handle Japanese automatically (via Unicode UTF-8 I assume though I have to admit to ignorance in this respect) mean that it could handle pretty much any other language easily?
Re: Ruby performance - FYI, my own benchmarks have shown Ruby to be around 20 - 50% slower than Python. I was willing to overlook performance issues for the time being as this won't be an issue for *most* of the things I do and I ass|u|me that it's being considered for improvement. Whether I'm right or wrong about that, I don't know.
Re: Suffering the costs - Well, if you were in my shoes and starting this little quest from scratch as it were and given what you know today, what would you do? The goal isn't just to find an interesting language and play with it. I would also like to be able, should any of my ideas pan out sufficiently, to be able to:
-Open source and/or commercialize parts of what I'm doing in a way that's completely useful to some set of future users without substantial concerns about
-presentability (no cheese allowed; I think you know what I mean)
-large runtime royalties (hello Franz and co!)
-extreme performance issues
-licensing issues with run-times or royalties
-portability (fairly important these days)
-etc.
-Program to a variety of target profiles (desktop, PDA, web) for starters; embedded is optional for me.
-Have available a sizeable set of APIs for common tasks. Writing yet another XML parser or web framework might be a fun learning exercise; but it's no way to get real work done.
So, anyway, I guess I'm just thinking this all through "out loud". I'm probably just hoping for too much, but if there's one thing I've learned the hard way it's "hope for little; receive little".
Cheers!
From this discussion.
Sorry for the OT posting, but I saw your reply to the above-titled thread and I didn't get a chance to continue the conversation with you before posting was turned off.
Anyway, you mentioned Python in your post, but I was wondering if you had tried Ruby yet and, if so, how it compares to Python and Lisp in your experience. I have used Python with good results in the past, but I've become dismayed by some of its warts. Now, having given thought to Lisp and other options, Ruby seems like the best choice with a good mixture of ideas from all over (including Lisp and Smalltalk if what I've read is correct).
So, as someone who appears to be a a(n) (ex?)-Lisper, I was wondering how Ruby measured up. Python may have a "faint shadow" of the power of CL, but where do you think Ruby rests in the "power continuum"? And by that I mean the abstraction power starts somewhere like QBasic with a measure of 1, and ends with Lisp with a measure of 10. (Is 10 accurate? Is Lisp really the conceivably best way to construct a powerful abstract language?)