Charles Oliver Nutter wrote: > Jim White wrote: > >>Scala has the right machinery for implementing a prototype for Java 3. >>Alas it suffers from the problem of other JVM languages like JRuby, >>Jython, and JavaFX in that it has gratuitous syntax deviation from Java >>for features that are the same as in Java. > > Them's fightin words! > > Syntax is important, but I don't think in the way that Scala's using it. > Of course I'm biased, but Ruby's syntactic "endulgences" appear to be > focused on making programming more fun...making programmers happier. I > think that alone deserves a lot of credit. Most languages focus on "one > way to do anything" or "we're easy for X programmers to learn". Matz > focused on making Ruby "fun". We could all use that kind of gratuity in > our languages. > > And Ruby is far more flexible and capable than Java. It's just slow (so > far). > > - Charlie
Obviously syntax preference is a matter of taste and there's surely no accounting for that (or fighting over it). As a long-time Lisper (and Forther from before that) I'd just as soon the language say as little as possible about syntax and let users make up whatever they like. But that has certain well-known problems and is not going to be a mainstream approach for "enterprise" application developers any time soon. My dismissal of languages on the basis of their syntactic choices is specifically with regard to the best scripting language for Java *developers* and also which might become a prototype for Java 3 (as GJ was for Java 5 (2?)). For both of those purposes, a language that doesn't support Java syntax for features that are already in Java is a non-starter. As far as the smackdown goes, Groovy runs a lot slower than Java (though faster than Ruby) and that really has little significance. Groovy is tons faster to *write* than Java and a whale load more fun (certainly as fun as Ruby :->)! Jim --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "JVM Languages" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/jvm-languages?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
