[wellylug] Non-standard languages on Linux

[Bret Comstock Waldow]

On Tue, 10 May 2005 12:16, E.Chalaron wrote:

> I most certainly missed the point, but what are the advantages of Ruby or
> Python compared to Pascal or C, C++ ?

Opinions, you want opinions, yes?

Depends on what you are trying to do.  Do you use bash scripts?  Why not write 
C++ programs?

C & C++ allow writing down to the metal - anything you want.  Good for device 
drivers, taking advantage of hardware, of course.

You can use libraries people have written, but you can write your own if you 
don't like the details.  But it's all on you to make it work, and that's not 
quick and easy.

At this point, C programmers jump in and say it's easy for them.  No.  I have 
a career in QA, working for Autodesk, IBM, PacBell, and the numbers and the 
busted deadlines and the broken budgets convincingly say differently.  Anyone 
can make a small program work in any language.  It may feel easy, but no one 
actually makes C & C++ work well without investing a lot of practice.  And 
most organizations are worse - one of the worst things to hear is "we have 
good people" - it means they don't have any better idea than that.

I write physics simulations, and I was faced with learning the deep 
intricacies of C++ or learning Java to deal with memory leaks.  I switched - 
life is short (and there's plenty of Java work).  Now I get design and logic 
errors, but not so many language errors - I have more time for other things.

I read a programming manager recently saying something like "many of our 
problems come from memory leaks - why should we use a language that allows 
our programmers to write memory leaks?"  Once a mistake has been recognized, 
computers are better at not making it than people are.

I understand Pascal is a teaching language, and access to the "real world" is 
a hack.  Perhaps it doesn't fit well?  It seems little used.

Python, Ruby et al, because I'm not here to take care of my computer - it's 
here to let me do things, and it's ok with me if I don't have to give so much 
of my time to catering to it.  Someone who spent their career becoming an 
expert in something other than a computer language can use such languages to 
write an automation so the computer can help them get something done without 
also spending the time to become an expert in C or C++ details (and there are 
lots of them - power comes at a price).

LISP is good for AI work.  AutoCAD used it, EMACS uses it.  I've been 
contemplating doing my physics work in LISP, but I'm pretty rusty now, and 
AutoLISP was a dialect - not mainstream LISP.  APL and (I think) Haskell are 
good for processing information with minimal code, but it's been quite a 
while since I wrote APL, and I've only been reading a bit about Haskell.

But it's easier to say things in APL than in C or Java.  Closer to the 
conceptual flow.  Unfortunately, no one pays me to use Haskell or LISP.  
Sigh.

Depends on what you want to do.  My opinions (although the QA experience is 
real).  YMMV.

Regards,
Bret
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