[wellylug] Non-standard languages on Linux

[Donald Gordon]

On 10/05/2005, at 12:16 PM, E.Chalaron wrote:
> I did write some code 12 years ago in Pascal, it was quite good to work
> with...
> I most certainly missed the point, but what are the advantages of Ruby 
> or Python compared to Pascal or C, C++ ?

They're modern object-oriented languages, with dynamic typing and 
garbage collection.

Pascal and C aren't OO -- you can write OO code in them if you really 
want to, but you have to do many things explicitly that are built into 
OO languages.  OO is wonderful; judicious use of it will solve world 
hunger.

Neither Pascal, C nor C++ provide garbage collection, aka Automatic 
Memory Management.  This means that when you allocate memory from the 
heap, you don't have to give it back manually, which is *really 
convenient*.  The wonders of garbage collection will bring about world 
peace.

Dynamic typing is another feature missing from Pascal, C and C++.  It 
means that you don't have to specify the types of objects; just send 
messages to them.  If no method with the correct signature is found, 
runtime errors will occur.  But if the object is capable of handling 
the message sent to it, the message will be sent, regardless of the 
type of the object.  This lack of discrimination will bring an end to 
racism.

So there you have it: ending world hunger and racism; creating world 
peace.  These are obvious reasons for switching to a more modern 
language :-)

donald