OSNews

Higher level languages will be an appropriate term. Some of these scripting languages are used to write databases, desktop applications, web frameworks and more. Plus a scripting language like Python supports more programming paradigms and constructs that real languages like C/C++ can only dream of. Wake me up when C has real introspection.

That article is rife with bad grammar and typos. Did the author even attempt to proofread it before posting?

and those, "higher level languages", that can perform these miracles you couldn't possibly do in C/asm are written in, what?

It's not the tool that limits one, it's the craftsman. The only limiting factors in the programming equation are your desire, reach and grasp.

As for the article, are there really any differences in scripting on linux than solaris, aix, irix or dgux? Sure , commands and args may differ slightly enough to wreck your first morning but I mean really different?

Can't help but note that in the article there is a downside to Python but no downside to PERL, I agree completely.

Great article, OSNEWS! Let me sum it up for all of you who just turned on a computer for the very first time.

#!/usr/bin/env python
print "Hello World"

#!/usr/local/bin/perl
print "Hello, worldn";

echo 'Hello World';

And my absolute favorite:

# Hello World in Ruby
STDOUT << "Hello World"

There you are. Now you can all say that you have advanced skills in 4 scripting languages on your resumes. Hopefully Novell puts out a sequel article about HELLO WORLD in C, C++, Java, and C#.

Hello World examples are trivial in any language, and is a pretty poor way to show a language's syntax.

I only scanned it, and didn't notice any significant errors that would hinder its readability, what form of English are you accustomed to? As you have to remember English (English spoken / written in England) is different to English-US, in terms of grammar rules and spellings.

Doubly so if you choose to due it a wacky way in some single language (Ruby).

The obvious way is 'puts "Hello, world!"' but apparently this guy just doesn't like 'puts'. (Or he has been writing a lot of C++.)

After reading the article a second time I realized the article was a pro-Ruby banter. The author goes on about how Ruby is a truly OO language because even integers are objects. And how OO was an afterthought in Python, yadda, yaddi...[snores]. Well, I gat news for him.

ubuntu@liblab77:~$ python
Python 2.4.1a0 (#2, Mar 1 2005, 15:45:39)
[GCC 3.3.5 (Debian 1:3.3.5-8ubuntu2)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> a = 7
>>> dir(a)
['__abs__', '__add__', '__and__', '__class__', '__cmp__', '__coerce__', '__delattr__', '__div__', '__divmod__', '__doc__', '__float__', '__floordiv__', '__getattribute__', '__getnewargs__', '__hash__', '__hex__', '__init__', '__int__', '__invert__', '__long__', '__lshift__', '__mod__', '__mul__', '__neg__', '__new__', '__nonzero__', '__oct__', '__or__', '__pos__', '__pow__', '__radd__', '__rand__', '__rdiv__', '__rdivmod__', '__reduce__', '__reduce_ex__', '__repr__', '__rfloordiv__', '__rlshift__', '__rmod__', '__rmul__', '__ror__', '__rpow__', '__rrshift__', '__rshift__', '__rsub__', '__rtruediv__', '__rxor__', '__setattr__', '__str__', '__sub__', '__truediv__', '__xor__']
>>>

Notice how only Python has a downside. And how all the other languages don't have any downsides. Heh, Nice Ruby promotion. How about mentioning the fact that Ruby documentation sucks, it doesn't have proper unicode support, and it's perlish inspired syntax where it takes forever to differentiate a method, from a function from a variable is totally retarded.

Or the fact that it doesn't have as many third party libraries as Python, Perl, PHP or even Java does. Uhm...yeah, does could fit nicely in the "Ruby Downside?" section.

I'm not gonna bother with the downsides of PHP and Perl. Yeah, the article was written with the intension of promoting Ruby.

I think this guy really lacks experience in some of the languages to judge their differences.

Some things he highlights are truely irrelevant, others are really missing. (Come on, every language on the list supports XML, DBs, GUIs and does not compile).

Further, he highlights all languages differently, as if all pieces are written by someone else.
I really think an editor should have taken a look at this before it was posted.

Unfortunately, I would have to agree with the other comments. And aren't Python, Ruby, Perl, and PHP a little too popular to be considered "strange" anymore?

I was hoping for some Haskell, or Befunge examples...

Here are some other comparisons that use better examples than "hello world":

http://mjtsai.com/blog/2002/11/25/perl_vs_python_vs_ruby/
http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby?RubyFromPython
http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/kd/courses/pythonruby.pdf
http://jimweirich.tadalist.com/lists/public/14055
http://python.fyxm.net/doc/Comparisons.html

> I only scanned it, and didn't notice any significant errors that would hinder its readability, what form of English are you accustomed to?

"writen", "atricle" and "langauge". I doubt these are correctly spelled in any form of the English language (and I am not a native speaker). Actually I don't care about typos and I don't start discussions about it, but you could at least correct them if people point you to them. osnews.com doesn't come across as very "professional" having three typos in 18 words.

Right I thought you we're refering to the Novell article, as there was no mention to the synopsis, but i will correct errors in the synopsis, in terms of in the article, we can not change that, as its on the Novell site.

The author doesn't even hold up on the article name. Which one of these languages could actually be categorized as "strange"? Maybe a language like "pike" would be "strange" but I hardly think the most popular scripting languages in the world can be defined as "strange".

Further more, the article seems rather biased. I've not used Python, but I've used the other languages, and I don't understand why python is the only one which has "downsides" listed when they all have the same shortcomings. But that's even debatable. Perl has a inline asm library which I'm sure python has too, and it would be perfectly fine to write the driver using that (of course, technically it's in part asm then).

I think some of of you others have already mentioned the fact that he doesn't use good examples (puts in ruby was missed) so that also shows that he doesn't have very indepth experience in my opinion.

While some scuff at scripting languages b/c it doesn't let you get into low-level system programming and write drivers, many including myself happen to love scripting languages b/c the language doesn't get in my way when I'm solving a problem. I'll take on a C or C++ programmer any day when it comes to protyping a scriptable application.

A big plus for Python is portability. Using the #! line rather than the actual location of python on your system allows you to move this code, without modification, to any system that has /usr/bin/env (the equivalent #! line for Perl points directly at the Perl binary).

What does this have to do with Python? I'm pretty sure "#!/usr/bin/env perl" works OK so long as perl is in your path. It's not Python specific in the least.

From what I've read 60% of all python downloads are from windows users.

I'm sure similar things can be said for php, ruby and perl I don't know.

This languages aren´t strange! maybe for this guy but not for any un*x programmer/admin.

I dont like neather his ruby version of helloWorld

but, anyway. For some people this is an intro to this beautifull languages

Python is too high a level language to allow you to interact with the hardware specifics of a computer or other device

Does Ruby allow this without an extension in C or something? If not, I don't see the difference

the ultimate language.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck

"* Perl is Y2K compliant."

That's so awesome.

This article is terrible. To call such established languages "strange" just makes the whole thing embarassing.

And where the heck did he find that ruby hello world? what happened to good old 'puts "Hello World"'?

But please, let's not start one more Ruby vs Python discussion here..it's both pointless and stupid! It's like arguing over the favorite ice cream flavor.

This article reads like a 7th grade school report...those done via Google in 40 minutes.

I can imagine the scene, the guy sitting at Novell doing nothing and then his boss "Hey Junior, why don't you write an article about those strange new languages?" (thinking on Nemerle and the like), and then the kid ends up finding these weird things (Pee-thon? Pie-thon?) and thinks "hell, this is weird enough,and its' for Lee-nux/lie-nux no less, problem solved!"

I'd recommend Junior to send these articles to Icaza next time, I am sure his team will love it!!!

Really disapponinting. Bad everything. I could learn more on that languages researching for just a minute. The author could, at least, have had a look into the Wikipedia.

And what does "Strange Languages" mean? Why linux?
All of them run on most platforms!

It really quit me from reading other Novell's "Cool Solutions"...

alarm bells started ringing for me when he said that due to the way python code was indented, it wasn't possible to write spaghetti code!!!

If you can't tell the difference between code that has been pretty-printed and code that is logically intertwined, how can you write a review on ANY language?
abdulhaq