Comment Re:seems like an odd choice (Score 1) 60
> Ruby is a nice language, but I don't think it
> comes out of an educational background. Its
> syntax is cleaner than Perl's but doesn't seem
> like it would be all that intuitive to
> non-computer users either (both Smalltalk and
> Logo seem better in that regard).
I don't know Logo, but I think non-programmers would find Ruby a lot more intuitive than Smalltalk. In Smalltalk, 2 + 3 * 4 is 20. In Ruby, it is 14, just as you'd expect it to be.
Python is a better choice choice for newbies, and it has some good primers. However, Ruby still has an edge. It has much better booleans. It doesn't care about indentation (the most frustrating thing for a newbie is when a program doesn't work because of something that is *invisible*, like a Python program that misbehaves because it has a tab where the programmer believes it has spaces.)
Ruby also continues to be natural as you learn more. You don't have to use weird kluges to get class variables. There's no diamond-inheritance headache (Ruby mixins accomplish anything you might want multiple inheritance for, but more cleanly). No doc-string abuse. And Ruby's more flexible syntax increases the likelihood that a newbie's program will actually run, which greatly reduces the newbie's frustration (an especially important issue if the newbie is a kid).
> comes out of an educational background. Its
> syntax is cleaner than Perl's but doesn't seem
> like it would be all that intuitive to
> non-computer users either (both Smalltalk and
> Logo seem better in that regard).
I don't know Logo, but I think non-programmers would find Ruby a lot more intuitive than Smalltalk. In Smalltalk, 2 + 3 * 4 is 20. In Ruby, it is 14, just as you'd expect it to be.
Python is a better choice choice for newbies, and it has some good primers. However, Ruby still has an edge. It has much better booleans. It doesn't care about indentation (the most frustrating thing for a newbie is when a program doesn't work because of something that is *invisible*, like a Python program that misbehaves because it has a tab where the programmer believes it has spaces.)
Ruby also continues to be natural as you learn more. You don't have to use weird kluges to get class variables. There's no diamond-inheritance headache (Ruby mixins accomplish anything you might want multiple inheritance for, but more cleanly). No doc-string abuse. And Ruby's more flexible syntax increases the likelihood that a newbie's program will actually run, which greatly reduces the newbie's frustration (an especially important issue if the newbie is a kid).
