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With all due respect, if you had such trouble with Poignant, the you probably also would have had a hard time with Ruby. Not to imply that you couldn't understa

With all due respect, if you had such trouble with Poignant, the you probably also would have had a hard time with Ruby. Not to imply that you couldn't understand Ruby or write in Ruby, but just that Ruby has a very distinct character, a personality almost, and I suspect you and Ruby would not have gotten along. For me, it's that way with Python. Honestly, Python is not fundamentally different from Ruby except this: In Python, there is "one right way". For some programmers that's a saving grace, for others it's akin to a death sentence. To each his/her own...

holygoat 18y ago
I don't believe I agree. Ruby is straightforward; I don't have any trouble at all understanding it. I enjoy _why's cartoons. That doesn't mean that reading _why's cartoons is in any way a good way (for me) to learn Ruby, which is a counterexample to your "probably". Ruby is hardly difficult. (For the sake of anecdotes: I find Python to be stultifyingly simplistic, with a number of negative features, and generally poor libraries. I find Ruby to be the wrong balance between dynamism and performance. I find both of them to lack syntactic abstraction.)
- jballanc 18y ago
  I didn't mean to imply that Ruby was difficult (though I could see how you might read my reply that way). I merely meant that Ruby embodies a certain philosophy of programming and programming languages, and, while _why is an extreme example, he is still a very accurate embodiment of the Ruby philosophy.
nonrecursive 18y ago
I enjoyed the unrelated sidebars in _why's Poignant Guide, but I don't think I really learned anything useful from it. The pickaxe book was more helpful for me. I've been using ruby for more than 3 years now and I really enjoy it, so I get along with it OK. To this day I still sometimes think that I should trudge through all of the poignant guide, but then I remember what a tedious time I had and decide not to.
tdavis 18y ago
Claims like this bother me, whether about Ruby or Python. a programming language is simply that -- a language used to program computers. It doesn't have a personality. It has a distinct syntax, methods, etc. It is the community which gives it a personality, if any.
- jballanc 18y ago
  Matz would disagree with you: "I believe people want to express themselves when they program. They don't want to fight with the language. Programming languages must feel natural to programmers. I tried to make people enjoy programming and concentrate on the fun and creative part of programming when they use Ruby." http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2001/11/29/ruby.html http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2001/11/29/ruby.ht...
  - tdavis 18y ago
    Honestly, I don't even agree with me. That comment came out wrong. What I meant to say was that I feel it is obtuse to say something like "you will probably have a hard time with Ruby if you have a hard time with this goofy book."
- unalone 18y ago
  Distinct syntax creates a personality, similar to how haikus read differently from sestinas. The form is the function is the attitude is the personality. They're one and the same.

holygoat 18y ago

I don't believe I agree. Ruby is straightforward; I don't have any trouble at all understanding it. I enjoy _why's cartoons. That doesn't mean that reading _why's cartoons is in any way a good way (for me) to learn Ruby, which is a counterexample to your "probably". Ruby is hardly difficult. (For the sake of anecdotes: I find Python to be stultifyingly simplistic, with a number of negative features, and generally poor libraries. I find Ruby to be the wrong balance between dynamism and performance. I find both of them to lack syntactic abstraction.)

jballanc 18y ago
I didn't mean to imply that Ruby was difficult (though I could see how you might read my reply that way). I merely meant that Ruby embodies a certain philosophy of programming and programming languages, and, while _why is an extreme example, he is still a very accurate embodiment of the Ruby philosophy.

nonrecursive 18y ago

I enjoyed the unrelated sidebars in _why's Poignant Guide, but I don't think I really learned anything useful from it. The pickaxe book was more helpful for me. I've been using ruby for more than 3 years now and I really enjoy it, so I get along with it OK. To this day I still sometimes think that I should trudge through all of the poignant guide, but then I remember what a tedious time I had and decide not to.

tdavis 18y ago

Claims like this bother me, whether about Ruby or Python. a programming language is simply that -- a language used to program computers. It doesn't have a personality. It has a distinct syntax, methods, etc. It is the community which gives it a personality, if any.

jballanc 18y ago
Matz would disagree with you: "I believe people want to express themselves when they program. They don't want to fight with the language. Programming languages must feel natural to programmers. I tried to make people enjoy programming and concentrate on the fun and creative part of programming when they use Ruby." http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2001/11/29/ruby.html http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2001/11/29/ruby.ht...
- tdavis 18y ago
  Honestly, I don't even agree with me. That comment came out wrong. What I meant to say was that I feel it is obtuse to say something like "you will probably have a hard time with Ruby if you have a hard time with this goofy book."
unalone 18y ago
Distinct syntax creates a personality, similar to how haikus read differently from sestinas. The form is the function is the attitude is the personality. They're one and the same.