On 3/19/07, Ted Husted <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
To me, the attractive thing about Ruby is that it's a full stack. We
can code in Ruby, soup to nuts ("turtles all the way down"), and the
Rails framework provides an interesting way to generate starter
applications.
With Java and JavaScript integration, we're on the cusp of having a
JavaScript middleware stack. Writing Actions in JavaScript is a
trivial step. All we need is something like iBATIS written in
JavaScript to go with that. We already have an iBATIS for Ruby, why
not an iBATIS for Rhino?
This probably will make me less employable as the years wear on, but I find
that I just don't like the more dynamic languages (or scripting languages or
whatever you want to call them). It's not an ego thing like I think it's a
"tinkertoy" or anything like that. I think any of those could be
enterprise-capable if they are not already. But it's a personality thing
for me. I like to have a compiler to tell me some things are wrong before I
ever run the code. I like to be able to say "This is a String", "This is an
int", "This is a cat", or whatever and for the compiler to complain if I try
to use an int as if it were a cat. I also like to be able to create ways to
turn an int into a cat if my program finds it useful.
I'm really not interested in getting something going very quickly (I did use
the word "unemployable"). I prefer to be able to build something that has
flexibility, that can change as the users' needs change. It may take longer
to build up front, but in the long run, it can grow more quickly. Again,
you can do all that with the dynamic languages. I just think Java is
cleaner. The thing that attracted me to Java in the first place is that it
had the preciseness of C++ but a much cleaner approach to object-oriented
design and less ambiguity about many things (esp. pointers). In a word,
it's easy (for me) to learn, yet powerful and flexible. The best thing is
it tells me when I am wrong better than the dynamic languages.
In art class I always liked the slow, tedious, detailed drybrushing methods
much better than quick watercolor painting :-) Give me time and I may come
around. I could get into JavaScript a lot quicker than Ruby. I could even
fall in love with Ruby, but I'm not there yet at all....
Greg
