Re: language theory regarding Perl/Ruby in universities ?

A.L. wrote:
On 18 Feb 2007 23:03:49 -0800, "surfivor" <surfver@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

O Can you elaborate on that or was this discussed in an academic
setting ? If not, it seems likely it comes from a bias of some sort
from whatever perceptions one may have from various experiences. Many
languages seem to have come from humble begginings. C came from
assembly language, which was much the basis for C++. Ruby is also
object oriented and came from Perl. I believe Perl was the basis for
many CGI based programs that initially started the internet. Who can
say whether something like Ruby is or is not the crux of some other
language of the future that is yet to be devised using various idoms
from that language.

Ruby is "Poor Man's Smalltalk". Only Smalltalk is better. Nothing new
in any aspect. Perl has its roots in AWK. And AWK is nice, Perl is
ugly. Nothing new in any aspect.

And I don't understand what you mean by ""language theory regarding
Ruby/Perl"?. Especially what it means THEORY.

A.L.

"Programming language theory (commonly known as PLT) is a branch of
computer science which deals with the design, implementation, analysis,
characterization, and classification of programming languages and
programming language features."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programming_language_theory

"Ruby is "Poor Man's Smalltalk"" is a statement about classification of
programming languages. "Only Smalltalk is better" is a characterization
of programming languages. "Nothing new in any aspect" is a statement
about programming language features, claiming that all features of Ruby
appear in earlier languages...

Your posting seems to me to be rather clear proof that it is possible to
make programming language theory statements about Ruby and Perl.

Of course, in an academic setting one would expect some supporting
evidence. For example, "Nothing new in any aspect" might be justified by
listing the features of Ruby, or Perl, and comparing them to features
that had appeared in programming languages prior to the language being
discussed.

Patricia
.

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