Ruby -- A better OO Perl than Perl? Python 3000 features available now?

[Clemens Hintze]

>>>>> "Bijan" == Bijan Parsia <bparsia at email.unc.edu> writes:

    Bijan> <david_ullrich at my-deja.com> wrote: [snip]
    >>  I don't know anything about Ruby, but a language could
    >> certainly be more fully OO than Python. For example in Python
    >> although everything is an object not every type is a class (you
    >> can't subclass list, for example).
    Bijan> [snip]

    Bijan> Of course, this presumes that the more "class" you have the
    Bijan> more fully "OOPY" you are. *Really* ools have *class*. Yuk
    Bijan> yuk.

:-) :-) :-)

I suppose it should be reformulated a little bit ;-) Perhaps to: Ruby
*is* a OOL (very close to Smalltalk), whereas Python *has* OO
constructs in it (means OOP is possible like in e.g. Perl).

    Bijan> Of course, this ignores prototype based systems (e.g., Self
    Bijan> & NewtonScript), which, some would argue, are *more* oopy
    Bijan> than class based systems.

Exact! I do not think we could do comparations what lang is more OOP
than others. We should only mention, if a lang is a hybrid (means
contains a OO system) or whether it is based/build around OO ...

Further I would allow to call Self a OOL, because OO means only
Object Oriented! OO includes things like: polymorphism, inheritance
and encapsulation (did I forget something? :-/) ...

It say nothing about how to realize it. It happens only that most OOL
use class instance scheme until today ... ;-)

You could simulate/emulate class <-> instance relations with
prototypes without any problem, though!

    Bijan> By *that* measure, Python would be *more* oopy than Ruby ;)

No! Because Ruby has both: Prototypes *and* Class/Instance scheme ;-)

    Bijan> (Of course, it's not clear to me that being unsubclassable
    Bijan> makes you not a class. Think of Javaesque "final" classes,
    Bijan> or Dylan's "sealed" classes.)

That was not the anchor, IMHO. I would not say Python is less OOL than 
Ruby. Python's is a hybrid, IMO. That internally there are objects to
realize the "primitives" for strings or lists make Python not OO.

If it would, then TCL would also be a OOL ;-)

The main point seems to be, that there are objects that are not
instance from a class, nor was they derived from a prototype. Like
'int' in C++. A hybrid!

    Bijan> Are Ruby's *classes*, themselves, instances of classes (aka
    Bijan> metaclasses)? Like, oh, let's see, *Smalltalk*!

They are! And modules also, and numbers, strings, ... All datatypes
are. Only the control structures aren't.

...

Clemens.