perspective on ruby

[Alex Martelli]

Edward Elliott <nobody at 127.0.0.1> wrote:
   ...
> course in C++ doesn't cut it, the curriculum should either use different
> languages fitted to each task or emphasize a single language with broad
> abilities (picking the best programming model for each task).  Java is

The only "single language" I could see fitting that role is Mozart,
deliberately designed to be SUPER-multi-paradigm -- not even Lisp and
Scheme (the only real competition) can compare.

While Mozart appears cool, I really think that a wider variety of
languages would help -- some machine code (possibly abstract a la
Mixal), C (a must, *SO* much is written in it!), at least one of C++, D,
or ObjectiveC, either Scheme or Lisp, either *ML or Haskell, either
Python or Ruby, and at least one "OOP-only" language such as Java, C#,
Eiffel, or Smalltalk.  For a tipycal CS bachelor course, a set of over
half a dozen languages might be overkill, admittedly (particularly
because these are just the "general purpose" languages -- you no doubt
also want to present XML and friends, possibly XSLT, definitely SQL, and
several other *special*-purpose language classes, too....!!!); too much
time would end up devoted to semirelevant syntax differences...

> Note that I'm talking about teaching languages.  Outside the classroom my
> choices would be completely different.

Absolutely, I'm thinking about CS courses specifically -- for science
and engineering courses, I'd have much different sets (yes, Virginia,
there ARE fields where you still absolutely need to know Fortran!-), for
humanities and soft-sciences other ones yet, and the real world is a
different (and frightening;-) sort of place!-)


Alex