Re: Ruby and OO (fwd)

[Dan Weinreb <address@hidden>]

   Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 11:51:59 -0500 (EST)
   From: Eli Collins <eli@u2i.com>

   This, to me, is easier to read. This is of course one of the nice
   things about scripting languages 

Hmm.  The Ruby syntax looks to me a lot like Smalltalk-80, if
memory serves.

<half-serious>
So either ST-80 is scripting langauge (who is to say?) or you
don't have to a scripting language to have this kind of terseness.
(Or I'm wrong about the similarity.)
</half-serious>

   > Some people also think that terseness in the language is a feature.
   > I myself don't buy that.  I don't believe in verbose, either, as it happens.

   I think terseness is a feature only if it makes the code easier to
   read. To me terseness/verbocity is not the issue, ease of reading is.

Yeah, it's another one of those things that isn't an either/or but
rather a tradeoff that must be made on a case-by-case basis, carefully
and with taste, and no matter how you decide it some people will think
you went too far one way and some will think the opposite.  It's a
judgement call, and usually there won't be one call that is
unquestionably right and best for everyone; on the other hand, some
calls are definitely better than others.

One rule of thumb is that terseness tends to be more important for
language constructs that we read and write more frequently, whereas
longer and more explicit names tend to be better for things we read
and write infrequently.  All of which must be qualified with the
question (as the old joke goes) "What you mean 'we', white man"?

-- Dan