Exactly. I personally actually prefer the low syntactic overhead of
Ruby over Perl. I find it much harder to read Perl code particularly
because of all the semicolons and special character that are loaded
with meaning.
Kind regards
robert
···
On Thu, Sep 26, 2013 at 5:14 AM, mark edwards <lists@ruby-forum.com> wrote:
if i am using semicolons and nobody else is, that's like showing up at
the toga party and i am the only one wearing a toga.
Perhaps when Y3K approaches, COBOL programmers will be called upon again to fix the fixes that were hardcoded to work for 2xxx only.
···
On 09/25/2013 04:58 PM, Wayne Brisette wrote:
I think Y2K was the height of COLBOL's comeback. There were an awful lot
of companies looking for COLBOL programmers to help them fix their older
code.
"syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon." - Aesop Paralysis
···
On Thu, Sep 26, 2013 at 11:26 AM, mark edwards <lists@ruby-forum.com> wrote:
ok i guess i can get used to not using the semicolons ! its just when
i first learned c, i was totally enamored with them.
former cobol'ers will no doubt remember using the period, but the rules
for when you used a period (and when you don't use it) were so bizarre
it just made the code unreadable. or if you did try to read it you got
a readers cramp because cobol was so long and wordy.
It's something that *I* used to code in, thankyouverymuch.
It was decades before other languages that dealt with decimal arithmatic actually gained traction.
-- Matt
It's not what I know that counts.
It's what I can remember in time to use.
···
On Wed, 25 Sep 2013, mark edwards wrote:
however, i saw COBOL (yes COBOL) getting five up arrows toward the
bottom of the page. for those of you who have not heard of COBOL, its
something your grandfather used to code in.
The important aspect for life long career is not language.
It is what you do in the software industry. software industry is a big industry.
Many subareas are different. You work for software product company,
software services company or you work in IT fields in one company or organization,
whatever profit or non profit, it will determine your future.
Then is your technology depth which should be suitable for your business.
This is my understanding.
> disaster in your career. The *most* important aspect for a life-long
> career in software development is *adaptability* and being able to look
> ahead and see what is coming.
agreed. i had hoped that ruby is "what is coming". i suppose i am
trying to determine where ruby is now and where it is heading. is it
gaining usage?
i have worked a little with c, java but mostly perl & php. jScript is
something most developers are forced to spend time in, although i have
been using jQuery instead.
it was rather surprising to see ruby getting three down arrows on tiobe.
however, i saw COBOL (yes COBOL) getting five up arrows toward the
bottom of the page. for those of you who have not heard of COBOL, its
something your grandfather used to code in.
So basically, figures are not about language usage, heck not even
about website mentions. They are just about search query hits of a
particular set of search engines. There are so many factors which
affect the rating that you need to take results with such big "grain"
of salt that you'll probably die of dehydration before the information
is helpful for your decision.
If in need of a language with high probability of getting you a well
paid job then checking your favorite job portal might be a better
decision helper. But keep in mind that mediocre mastering of a
popular language you do not like might yield worse results than
mastery of a niche language which amazes you.
Kind regards
robert
···
On Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 4:48 AM, mark edwards <lists@ruby-forum.com> wrote:
it was rather surprising to see ruby getting three down arrows on tiobe.
however, i saw COBOL (yes COBOL) getting five up arrows toward the
bottom of the page. for those of you who have not heard of COBOL, its
something your grandfather used to code in.
I think that needs to be asked another way, which is are there things
Ruby can do that Perl can't. I never took to Perl like I have taken to
Ruby, so maybe I'm very biased. But while both languages I think are fairly
equal. The one are where Ruby stands out for me is readability. I've looked
at Perl code trying to figure out what the person who wrote it was doing.
Then gone back to them (sometimes it had been a while since they had looked
at the code) and asked what they were doing, and I can't tell you how many
times they spent a good 10-15 minutes trying to figure out what it was they
were doing. Part of that is readability, part is the lack of OOP, but it
does make a point of where Ruby shines over Perl. However, I myself have
quickly written Ruby spaghetti code, so it's not just a language thing by
itself.
I've worked with Perl as my main language for the last 10 years and am
currently learning Ruby. Although I love the design of the language I find
the lack of code structures - @, $, %, {, ->, \ - difficult to adjust to.
It takes a while to get used to, in comparison Ruby and Python feel naked,
you have nothing to anchor your brain.
In my view this happens because Perl is kinda statically typed, the sigils
indicate data types. Ruby and Python lack this kind of metadata.
It will probably become my main language eventually but at present Ruby
code, like Javascript, looks like sentences full of barewords. That has me
thinking - is "bareword" a Perlism?
Yes, "bareword" is Perl jargon.
···
On Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 9:40 PM, gvim <gvimrc@gmail.com> wrote:
On 25/09/2013 15:58, Wayne Brisette wrote:
