5 ms·

Nice example of RoR user blinders.

MrBra 14y ago
If you criticize what I say, then please bring arguments against what I said, i.e. bring me an example of a more Expressive, Flexible, Real world ready, community supported programming language to code in... (except ruby derivatives) I'd love to learn it. Don't forget any points please, because this is what made ruby so popular and adopted... Oh and don't even start with "expressive is subjective" thing. We are talking about a language, not an abstract art painting.
- elbear 14y ago
  Is there an objective way to measure the flexibility and expressiveness of programming languages?
  - lutusp 14y ago
    No, not "objective", because languages fill different roles, and it is the language's role that determines its "flexibility and expressiveness" for that specific purpose. This means comparisons cannot be based on shared criteria.
    - MrBra 14y ago
      Excuse me, what do you think it is the role of a programming language usually ?
  - MrBra 14y ago
    Is there a way to measure the flexibility and expressiveness of a language?
    - elbear 14y ago
      You tell me. You're the one saying that some languages are more flexible and expressive than others. How do you measure that?
      - MrBra 14y ago
        How do you measure wheter what you just typed is more expressive to me than raw ascii numbers representing the characters you typed? ... Why do you need to make a small problem big, just to sound "academic" ? ..you can easily measure the expressiveness of any given language by how easily you can understand it based on what you already know (i.e. your mothertongue language). The same old principle of the least surpise.. And flexibility ? How would you tell if one language is more flexible than another ? It takes no academic graduation to understand that flexibilty is the degree of freedom the language allows you in combining the language fundamental "bits" in syntactically correct ways. So, getting back on topic for you to understand better... : Ruby different Ways To Loop http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/151837 http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/151837 The beauty of Ruby through examples http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/217762 http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/217762 Good reading.
- cincinnatus 14y ago
  My problem is with the premise of your argument; that being expressive and flexible are more desirable than other traits, and that having those traits make it somehow more applicable to 'real world' applications, whatever those are. I've coded in Ruby. I've also coded in C, C++, C#, VB.Net, VB 1 through 6, JS, Java Smalltalk, Pascal, MASM, and more. Many on production systems or consumer software that was distributed to millions of people. Each language has its strengths and weaknesses. There are many situations where Ruby is a great choice. Unfortunately it also gets used in situations where maybe it wasn't the best choice. No language is the be-all end-all. You're always going to want to choose the 'least bad' option for any project and there are many factors to weigh and not all of them are technical. Personally I will probably never choose to start a new project in, or build a team around, Ruby again.
  - MrBra 14y ago
    You are trying to logically 'mislead' the sense of the points I made. I never said that expressiveness and flexibility _alone_ are the keys of Ruby adoption in real world use cases. Doing so you made my comment sound as if I were totally ignoring a simple thing such as the fact that the primary characteristic of a programming language(or any other tool) that wants to solving a real world problem is its ability to solve a real world problem... That's a bit pathetic and arrogant from you.. So I can see some bias against Ruby in the first place. So having explained that, let's say that Ruby can solve many real world problems and _on top of that_ adds expressiveness and flexibility which is something that so far no other language has achieved at that level, putting up a tool that _in its wholeness_ can serve to a lot of purposes in a nice way. Of course, due to its performance, at the moment some scopes might be left out, but find me another language in the same performance window(so with the same 'possible purposes') that can retain the same expressiveness and flexibily! (flexibiliy also intended as flexibility of its expressiveness itself!) Given the same performance then, what is the 'least bad' option if not the one which also gives you this added value? Which also leads to more maintenability, and in the end (and above all), to more FUN.... ? And just to make this clear, when Rubysts say things like "FUN", "LOVE", they don't mean it like "skateboarding" or loving something a-la fan'obsessed'boy. We mean it like intellectually engaging, without many of the off-puts that a constrained environment like a typical programming language usually involves PLUS the big (so big) "Hey!" factor that comes in when you look back at your code and you are just instantly amazed at how good you distilled and syntesized a concept in 3 lines of code that seem to talk back to you... Wish all the "haters" had tried Ruby at least once for the simple sake of discovering something new, and I am not talking about trying new programming paradigms (Ruby didn't invent them as so many bloggers felt the need to make clear..) it's about how mentally refreshingly it feels to collaborate with "The Machine" to impress your ideas.. and while you read back your code sometimes it can give you that enthusiasm and thrills that might even make you look a bit arrogant, like the good old days when you discovered a musical instrument and you saw that after a while you were pulling good stuff out of it NATURALLY. I've also done C, and felt in love with pointers :) but once you know them you want to go further and inject some more creativity in your project, and then pointers come back angry at you for you letting them alone, bugging your code here and there, and reminding you have to think C-ish and eating in all the creativiy you had in mind when that night you sat down at the pc full of crazy great new big ideas for your project... Ruby doesn't do that, it doesn't want me to think in a pre-packed way, it doesn't eat my creativy. It collaborates with it, and it's not only fun when you code it, but also when you look back at it.. it still shines as in that moment when you had that particular coding "englightenment". If you think that creativity is all, try Ruby. Performance is just a matter of time and will come :) And that's all :) Oh.. and smile :) Arrogantly sometimes! :)

MrBra 14y ago

If you criticize what I say, then please bring arguments against what I said, i.e. bring me an example of a more Expressive, Flexible, Real world ready, community supported programming language to code in... (except ruby derivatives) I'd love to learn it. Don't forget any points please, because this is what made ruby so popular and adopted... Oh and don't even start with "expressive is subjective" thing. We are talking about a language, not an abstract art painting.

elbear 14y ago
Is there an objective way to measure the flexibility and expressiveness of programming languages?
- lutusp 14y ago
  No, not "objective", because languages fill different roles, and it is the language's role that determines its "flexibility and expressiveness" for that specific purpose. This means comparisons cannot be based on shared criteria.
  - MrBra 14y ago
    Excuse me, what do you think it is the role of a programming language usually ?
- MrBra 14y ago
  Is there a way to measure the flexibility and expressiveness of a language?
  - elbear 14y ago
    You tell me. You're the one saying that some languages are more flexible and expressive than others. How do you measure that?
    - MrBra 14y ago
      How do you measure wheter what you just typed is more expressive to me than raw ascii numbers representing the characters you typed? ... Why do you need to make a small problem big, just to sound "academic" ? ..you can easily measure the expressiveness of any given language by how easily you can understand it based on what you already know (i.e. your mothertongue language). The same old principle of the least surpise.. And flexibility ? How would you tell if one language is more flexible than another ? It takes no academic graduation to understand that flexibilty is the degree of freedom the language allows you in combining the language fundamental "bits" in syntactically correct ways. So, getting back on topic for you to understand better... : Ruby different Ways To Loop http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/151837 http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/151837 The beauty of Ruby through examples http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/217762 http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/217762 Good reading.
cincinnatus 14y ago
My problem is with the premise of your argument; that being expressive and flexible are more desirable than other traits, and that having those traits make it somehow more applicable to 'real world' applications, whatever those are. I've coded in Ruby. I've also coded in C, C++, C#, VB.Net, VB 1 through 6, JS, Java Smalltalk, Pascal, MASM, and more. Many on production systems or consumer software that was distributed to millions of people. Each language has its strengths and weaknesses. There are many situations where Ruby is a great choice. Unfortunately it also gets used in situations where maybe it wasn't the best choice. No language is the be-all end-all. You're always going to want to choose the 'least bad' option for any project and there are many factors to weigh and not all of them are technical. Personally I will probably never choose to start a new project in, or build a team around, Ruby again.
- MrBra 14y ago
  You are trying to logically 'mislead' the sense of the points I made. I never said that expressiveness and flexibility _alone_ are the keys of Ruby adoption in real world use cases. Doing so you made my comment sound as if I were totally ignoring a simple thing such as the fact that the primary characteristic of a programming language(or any other tool) that wants to solving a real world problem is its ability to solve a real world problem... That's a bit pathetic and arrogant from you.. So I can see some bias against Ruby in the first place. So having explained that, let's say that Ruby can solve many real world problems and _on top of that_ adds expressiveness and flexibility which is something that so far no other language has achieved at that level, putting up a tool that _in its wholeness_ can serve to a lot of purposes in a nice way. Of course, due to its performance, at the moment some scopes might be left out, but find me another language in the same performance window(so with the same 'possible purposes') that can retain the same expressiveness and flexibily! (flexibiliy also intended as flexibility of its expressiveness itself!) Given the same performance then, what is the 'least bad' option if not the one which also gives you this added value? Which also leads to more maintenability, and in the end (and above all), to more FUN.... ? And just to make this clear, when Rubysts say things like "FUN", "LOVE", they don't mean it like "skateboarding" or loving something a-la fan'obsessed'boy. We mean it like intellectually engaging, without many of the off-puts that a constrained environment like a typical programming language usually involves PLUS the big (so big) "Hey!" factor that comes in when you look back at your code and you are just instantly amazed at how good you distilled and syntesized a concept in 3 lines of code that seem to talk back to you... Wish all the "haters" had tried Ruby at least once for the simple sake of discovering something new, and I am not talking about trying new programming paradigms (Ruby didn't invent them as so many bloggers felt the need to make clear..) it's about how mentally refreshingly it feels to collaborate with "The Machine" to impress your ideas.. and while you read back your code sometimes it can give you that enthusiasm and thrills that might even make you look a bit arrogant, like the good old days when you discovered a musical instrument and you saw that after a while you were pulling good stuff out of it NATURALLY. I've also done C, and felt in love with pointers :) but once you know them you want to go further and inject some more creativity in your project, and then pointers come back angry at you for you letting them alone, bugging your code here and there, and reminding you have to think C-ish and eating in all the creativiy you had in mind when that night you sat down at the pc full of crazy great new big ideas for your project... Ruby doesn't do that, it doesn't want me to think in a pre-packed way, it doesn't eat my creativy. It collaborates with it, and it's not only fun when you code it, but also when you look back at it.. it still shines as in that moment when you had that particular coding "englightenment". If you think that creativity is all, try Ruby. Performance is just a matter of time and will come :) And that's all :) Oh.. and smile :) Arrogantly sometimes! :)