W
Warren Seltzer
I am coming to Ruby having used the usual list of scripting and C* =
languages. Since Ruby
has such powerful programming features, I think it may be used for some =
really large
system. My decades long observation of software is that small programs =
that succeed
become large programs.
But I am concerned about Ruby's suitability for programming in the =
large. First off, the
lack of the requirement to declare variables sounds like an invitation =
to programming
bugs. It's just too easy to assign something to a misspelling of a =
variable name. Make
the same spelling mistake again and you won't even get a warning about =
an undefined
variable.
For example this 1-line program issues no error:
puts @whatever
This is a code bug that a statically typed compiler would scream about.
-------------------
Also: Is anybody doing a port to 64-bit systems?
-------------------
Also, a history question. With Ruby coming out of Japan, why wasn't =
Unicode support done
earlier? You'd think it would be insulated mono-lingual Americans who =
would delay that...
Warren Seltzer
languages. Since Ruby
has such powerful programming features, I think it may be used for some =
really large
system. My decades long observation of software is that small programs =
that succeed
become large programs.
But I am concerned about Ruby's suitability for programming in the =
large. First off, the
lack of the requirement to declare variables sounds like an invitation =
to programming
bugs. It's just too easy to assign something to a misspelling of a =
variable name. Make
the same spelling mistake again and you won't even get a warning about =
an undefined
variable.
For example this 1-line program issues no error:
puts @whatever
This is a code bug that a statically typed compiler would scream about.
-------------------
Also: Is anybody doing a port to 64-bit systems?
-------------------
Also, a history question. With Ruby coming out of Japan, why wasn't =
Unicode support done
earlier? You'd think it would be insulated mono-lingual Americans who =
would delay that...
Warren Seltzer