hi

hi

[Hans Hagen]

Hi All,

Tomorrow i'll try to answers a couple of pending mails. Maybe i'll also 
post a draft of a few chapters of details.pdf to satisfy the manual hunger.

Hans
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE | pragma@wxs.nl
                       Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
  tel: +31 (0)38 477 53 69 | fax: +31 (0)38 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                        information: http://www.pragma-ade.com/roadmap.pdf
                     documentation: http://www.pragma-ade.com/showcase.pdf
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: hi

[Giuseppe Bilotta]

Monday, July 8, 2002 Hans Hagen wrote:

HH> Hi All,

HH> Tomorrow i'll try to answers a couple of pending mails. Maybe i'll also 
HH> post a draft of a few chapters of details.pdf to satisfy the manual hunger.

I'm posting here because of the generic content:

some time ago we had some talk about a possible language
replacement for Perl. Python was investigated as a possible
choice, but it had very poor regex support. I'm now glancing
through Ruby (www.ruby-lang.org) and it smells like a very good
choice ...

-- 
Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta

Re: hi

[Glenn R. Williams]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Hi All,

I'm curious about your comment that Python had very poor regex support. Were 
you looking at an older version of several years ago when you did the 
evaluation? Python has very full regex support (perl style), and the latest 
versions (> 1.6) use very quick algorithms - pcre).

Just my two cents...

Glenn

On Monday 08 July 2002 07:40 pm, Giuseppe Bilotta wrote:
> Monday, July 8, 2002 Hans Hagen wrote:
>
> HH> Hi All,
>
> HH> Tomorrow i'll try to answers a couple of pending mails. Maybe i'll also
> HH> post a draft of a few chapters of details.pdf to satisfy the manual
> hunger.
>
> I'm posting here because of the generic content:
>
> some time ago we had some talk about a possible language
> replacement for Perl. Python was investigated as a possible
> choice, but it had very poor regex support. I'm now glancing
> through Ruby (www.ruby-lang.org) and it smells like a very good
> choice ...

- -- 
Glenn R Williams
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Mathematical theories are the part of science you could continue to do 
if you woke up tomorrow and discovered the universe was gone" 
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Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org

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RsMhCRLDJ1SGrXtYLsRG63I=
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Re[2]: hi

[Giuseppe Bilotta]

Tuesday, July 9, 2002 Glenn R. Williams wrote:

GRW> I'm curious about your comment that Python had very poor regex support. Were
GRW> you looking at an older version of several years ago when you did the 
GRW> evaluation? Python has very full regex support (perl style), and the latest 
GRW> versions (> 1.6) use very quick algorithms - pcre).

Ok, sorry, my mail was definitely not clear on this point: RegEx
in Python are very *clumsy* to use. Since they are a very
consistent part of the Perl scripts in ConTeXt, ease of use should
be a priority. Secondly, I hate Python's way of having
"significant whitespace" (esp. indentation) (Note that I use
Python quite a bit, since wxPython is really "kewl".) Now I'm
having a look around to see if I find wxRuby ...

-- 
Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta

Re: hi

[Serge Stinckwich]

On Tue, 9 Jul 2002 01:40:25 +0200
"Giuseppe Bilotta" <gip.bilotta@iol.it> wrote:

> 
> Monday, July 8, 2002 Hans Hagen wrote:
> 
> HH> Hi All,
> 
> HH> Tomorrow i'll try to answers a couple of pending mails. Maybe i'll also 
> HH> post a draft of a few chapters of details.pdf to satisfy the manual hunger.
> 
> I'm posting here because of the generic content:
> 
> some time ago we had some talk about a possible language
> replacement for Perl. Python was investigated as a possible
> choice, but it had very poor regex support. I'm now glancing
> through Ruby (www.ruby-lang.org) and it smells like a very good
> choice ...

Yes, Ruby is not a too bad choice. 
Use Smalltalk instead, if you want a real object-oriented language.
Squeak (http://www.squeak.org/) and Gnu-Smalltalk (http://www.gnu.org/software/smalltalk/smalltalk.html) are open-source version of Smalltalk.
Gnu-Smalltalk 2.0 got regex support.

Cheers,

-- 
Serge Stinckwich                                         -< )  http://multiagent.com/
Université de Caen>CNRS UMR 6072>GREYC>I3>SMILE           /~\  http://squeak.org/
http://www.iutc3.unicaen.fr/serge/                       (/  | http://zope.org/
Smalltalkers do: [:it | All with: Class, (And love: it)] _|_/  http://debian.org/

Re: hi

[Berend de Boer]

Serge Stinckwich <Serge.Stinckwich@info.unicaen.fr> writes:

> > some time ago we had some talk about a possible language
> > replacement for Perl. Python was investigated as a possible
> > choice, but it had very poor regex support. I'm now glancing
> > through Ruby (www.ruby-lang.org) and it smells like a very good
> > choice ...
> 
> Yes, Ruby is not a too bad choice. 
> Use Smalltalk instead, if you want a real object-oriented language.
> Squeak (http://www.squeak.org/) and Gnu-Smalltalk (http://www.gnu.org/software/smalltalk/smalltalk.html) are open-source version of Smalltalk.
> Gnu-Smalltalk 2.0 got regex support.

Yeah, let's start a language war :-))

I advocate SmallEiffel:

        http://smalleiffel.loria.fr

Has regexp too!

-- 
Live long and prosper,

Berend de Boer

Re: hi

[Serge Stinckwich]

On 09 Jul 2002 21:26:19 +1200
"Berend de Boer" <berend@pobox.com> wrote:

> Serge Stinckwich <Serge.Stinckwich@info.unicaen.fr> writes:
> 
> > > some time ago we had some talk about a possible language
> > > replacement for Perl. Python was investigated as a possible
> > > choice, but it had very poor regex support. I'm now glancing
> > > through Ruby (www.ruby-lang.org) and it smells like a very good
> > > choice ...
> > 
> > Yes, Ruby is not a too bad choice. 
> > Use Smalltalk instead, if you want a real object-oriented language.
> > Squeak (http://www.squeak.org/) and Gnu-Smalltalk (http://www.gnu.org/software/smalltalk/smalltalk.html) are open-source version of Smalltalk.
> > Gnu-Smalltalk 2.0 got regex support.
> 
> Yeah, let's start a language war :-))

Sorry, i don't want to start a language war ;-)

> I advocate SmallEiffel:
> 
>         http://smalleiffel.loria.fr
> 
> Has regexp too!

Very nice language, but not really script-oriented.

-- 
Serge Stinckwich                                         -< )  http://multiagent.com/
Université de Caen>CNRS UMR 6072>GREYC>I3>SMILE           /~\  http://squeak.org/
http://www.iutc3.unicaen.fr/serge/                       (/  | http://zope.org/
Smalltalkers do: [:it | All with: Class, (And love: it)] _|_/  http://debian.org/

Re: hi

[Axel Rose]

Please, please, please stick with Perl.

Even if you wouldn't like the language (a fact I couldn't understand :))
it is nowadays installed with every modern Unix system. It's easy to
have it on Windows and I use it on Macs too.

Axel

Re[2]: hi

[Giuseppe Bilotta]

Tuesday, July 9, 2002 Serge Stinckwich wrote:

SS> Yes, Ruby is not a too bad choice. 
SS> Use Smalltalk instead, if you want a real object-oriented language.
SS> Squeak (http://www.squeak.org/) and Gnu-Smalltalk (http://www.gnu.org/software/smalltalk/smalltalk.html) are open-source version of Smalltalk.
SS> Gnu-Smalltalk 2.0 got regex support.

Not to start a flame war, but I thought Ruby *was* a real OO
language --at least that's what the author claims ...

Is SmallTalk a scripting language or a compiled language?

-- 
Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta

Re: Re[2]: hi

[Serge Stinckwich]

On Tue, 9 Jul 2002 12:00:55 +0200
"Giuseppe Bilotta" <gip.bilotta@iol.it> wrote:

> 
> Tuesday, July 9, 2002 Serge Stinckwich wrote:
> 
> SS> Yes, Ruby is not a too bad choice. 
> SS> Use Smalltalk instead, if you want a real object-oriented language.
> SS> Squeak (http://www.squeak.org/) and Gnu-Smalltalk (http://www.gnu.org/software/smalltalk/smalltalk.html) are open-source version of Smalltalk.
> SS> Gnu-Smalltalk 2.0 got regex support.
> 
> Not to start a flame war, but I thought Ruby *was* a real OO
> language --at least that's what the author claims ...

Yes, you are right Ruby is a more OO than Python for example.
Someone say that : Smalltalk is more elegant, Perl is more pragmatic. So Ruby is a bit elegant and a bit pragmatic :  
Ruby = (Smalltalk + Perl)/2

> Is SmallTalk a scripting language or a compiled language?

Gnu-Smalltalk is a scripting langage but use byte-code.

-- 
Serge Stinckwich                                         -< )  http://multiagent.com/
Université de Caen>CNRS UMR 6072>GREYC>I3>SMILE           /~\  http://squeak.org/
http://www.iutc3.unicaen.fr/serge/                       (/  | http://zope.org/
Smalltalkers do: [:it | All with: Class, (And love: it)] _|_/  http://debian.org/

Re: hi

[Fabrice Popineau]

* Giuseppe Bilotta <gip.bilotta@iol.it> writes:

> Not to start a flame war, but I thought Ruby *was* a real OO
> language --at least that's what the author claims ...

If you want a reall O-O language then use CommonLisp/MOP !

And it has also good support for regex:
http://www.geocities.com/mparker762/clawk.html

Who would believe that the regex string matcher is x5-x20 faster than
the GNU C one ?

Fabrice

Perl is evil, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ruby, Python is the way to go!

[Patrick Gundlach]

Giuseppe Bilotta <gip.bilotta@iol.it> writes:

Hi,

> some time ago we had some talk about a possible language
> replacement for Perl. Python was investigated as a possible
> choice, but it had very poor regex support. I'm now glancing
> through Ruby (www.ruby-lang.org) and it smells like a very good
> choice ...

Hey guys, what are you talking about? Why should anybody replace
texexec and such like? Who should replace it? Who should maintain it?
Let us get back to reality. The person who writes a program decides on
the language to use. Everything else is unrealistic. There are endless
nicer languages then perl out there. But this is just an academic
argument. Not a real world argument. Let us focus on more needed stuff
like editor support, better integration in TeX distributions etc.

Patrick, who is shaking his head because he does not understand why...

-- 
I'll fade into the darkness

Re: Perl is evil, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ruby, Python is the way to go!

[Giuseppe Bilotta]

Tuesday, July 9, 2002 Patrick Gundlach wrote:

PG> Hey guys, what are you talking about? Why should anybody replace
PG> texexec and such like? Who should replace it? Who should maintain it?
PG> Let us get back to reality. The person who writes a program decides on
PG> the language to use. Everything else is unrealistic. There are endless
PG> nicer languages then perl out there. But this is just an academic
PG> argument. Not a real world argument. Let us focus on more needed stuff
PG> like editor support, better integration in TeX distributions etc.

Well, that's precisely the kind of thing where Perl is being
(ab)used for, and another language would be better :)

Anyway, my suggestion was mostly oriented to Hans because in the
past we did have some talks on possible alternatives to Perl.

-- 
Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta

Re: Perl is evil, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ruby, Python is the way to go!

[Patrick Gundlach]

Giuseppe Bilotta <gip.bilotta@iol.it> writes:

> Well, that's precisely the kind of thing where Perl is being
> (ab)used for, and another language would be better :)

what do you mean by "that" and "where"?
> 
> Anyway, my suggestion was mostly oriented to Hans because in the
> past we did have some talks on possible alternatives to Perl.

OK, it looked  as if this was some other "well the program foo should
be in a bar-like language that can do some nice stuff. Could anybody
else do this, please?"

Patrick 

-- 
I'll fade into the darkness

Re[2]: Perl is evil, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ruby, Python is the way to go!

[Giuseppe Bilotta]

Wednesday, July 10, 2002 Patrick Gundlach wrote:

PG> Giuseppe Bilotta <gip.bilotta@iol.it> writes:

>> Well, that's precisely the kind of thing where Perl is being
>> (ab)used for, and another language would be better :)

PG> what do you mean by "that" and "where"?

Creating an editor, for example.

>> Anyway, my suggestion was mostly oriented to Hans because in the
>> past we did have some talks on possible alternatives to Perl.

PG> OK, it looked  as if this was some other "well the program foo should
PG> be in a bar-like language that can do some nice stuff. Could anybody
PG> else do this, please?"

Oj, sorry I gave that impression ... guess it should have been
just a private mail to Hans :\

-- 
Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta

Re[2]: Perl is evil, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ruby, Python is the way to go!

[Hans Hagen]

At 01:01 AM 7/10/2002 +0200, you wrote:

>Wednesday, July 10, 2002 Patrick Gundlach wrote:
>
>PG> Giuseppe Bilotta <gip.bilotta@iol.it> writes:
>
>
> >> Well, that's precisely the kind of thing where Perl is being
> >> (ab)used for, and another language would be better :)
>
>PG> what do you mean by "that" and "where"?
>
>Creating an editor, for example.

i know -) but tk has some great stuff in it, so the perl/tk code is less 
than the original modula code

Oj, sorry I gave that impression ... guess it should have been
>just a private mail to Hans :\

never mind; concerning languages: python is probably ok, but i dislike the 
indentation idea; smalltalk is ok too, but i only played with it, long ago 
(the original smalltalk books are great), i've read about eiffel and like 
the language, will look into ruby when i come across, like lisp because 
it's clean, like modula because i've done a lot in it; i really like tex 
but occasionally dislike it due to some missing features; i definitely like 
metapost; i dislike c because of the syntax, but c++ looks better; i have 
no opinion yet about java but i dislike the slowness of nts; if i remember 
well, i liked the machine code of the 1802 processor, etc etc

Hans
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE | pragma@wxs.nl
                       Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
  tel: +31 (0)38 477 53 69 | fax: +31 (0)38 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                        information: http://www.pragma-ade.com/roadmap.pdf
                     documentation: http://www.pragma-ade.com/showcase.pdf
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re[3]: Perl is evil, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ruby, Python is the way to go!

[Giuseppe Bilotta]

Wednesday, July 10, 2002 Hans Hagen wrote:

>> Oj, sorry I gave that impression ... guess it should have been
>>just a private mail to Hans :\

HH> never mind; concerning languages: python is probably ok, but i dislike the 
HH> indentation idea; smalltalk is ok too, but i only played with it, long ago 
HH> (the original smalltalk books are great), i've read about eiffel and like 
HH> the language, will look into ruby when i come across, like lisp because
HH> it's clean, like modula because i've done a lot in it; i really like tex 
HH> but occasionally dislike it due to some missing features; i definitely like 
HH> metapost; i dislike c because of the syntax, but c++ looks better; i have 
HH> no opinion yet about java but i dislike the slowness of nts; if i remember 
HH> well, i liked the machine code of the 1802 processor, etc etc

And where the HECK do you FIND the TIME to do all this??? :D

-- 
Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta

Re: Re[2]: Perl is evil, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ruby, Python is the way to go!

[Ed L Cashin]

(Let me preface this with the comment that I think perl is a great,
but quirky, language, and that it's possible and not too hard to write
efficient, readable, reliable, structured large programs in perl.)

Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl> writes:

> never mind; concerning languages: python is probably ok, but i dislike
> the indentation idea; smalltalk is ok too, but i only played with it,
> long ago (the original smalltalk books are great), i've read about
> eiffel and like the language, will look into ruby when i come across,
> like lisp because it's clean, like modula because i've done a lot in
> it; i really like tex but occasionally dislike it due to some missing
> features; i definitely like metapost; i dislike c because of the
> syntax, but c++ looks better; i have no opinion yet about java but i
> dislike the slowness of nts; if i remember well, i liked the machine
> code of the 1802 processor, etc etc

I shared your hesitations regarding Python.  When I heard about ruby
it seemed too good to be true, and I kept thinking that I wouldn't
ever prefer ruby to perl because it wouldn't have such-and-such
feature, but the more I learned about it the more impressed I was.  I
now do prefer ruby.  

While it's easy to use perl in a clean way, it's easier in ruby, and
ruby's design draws from lisp and other sophisticated languages.

It would be interesting to design a new typesetting language.  :) It
should have namespaces, lexical scoping, functions/procedures,
objects, and labeled loop constructs like perl (and Java, IIRC).

These language features would eliminate a lot of the hairier
shenanighans that the ConTeXt developers have to go through in order
to do interesting things.

-- 
--Ed L Cashin            |   PGP public key:
  ecashin@uga.edu        |   http://noserose.net/e/pgp/

Re: Re[2]: Perl is evil, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ruby, Python is the way to go!

[Hans Hagen]

At 10:06 AM 7/18/2002 -0400, Ed L Cashin wrote:
>(Let me preface this with the comment that I think perl is a great,
>but quirky, language, and that it's possible and not too hard to write
>efficient, readable, reliable, structured large programs in perl.)
>
>Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl> writes:
>
> > never mind; concerning languages: python is probably ok, but i dislike
> > the indentation idea; smalltalk is ok too, but i only played with it,
> > long ago (the original smalltalk books are great), i've read about
> > eiffel and like the language, will look into ruby when i come across,
> > like lisp because it's clean, like modula because i've done a lot in
> > it; i really like tex but occasionally dislike it due to some missing
> > features; i definitely like metapost; i dislike c because of the
> > syntax, but c++ looks better; i have no opinion yet about java but i
> > dislike the slowness of nts; if i remember well, i liked the machine
> > code of the 1802 processor, etc etc
>
>I shared your hesitations regarding Python.  When I heard about ruby
>it seemed too good to be true, and I kept thinking that I wouldn't
>ever prefer ruby to perl because it wouldn't have such-and-such
>feature, but the more I learned about it the more impressed I was.  I
>now do prefer ruby.
>
>While it's easy to use perl in a clean way, it's easier in ruby, and
>ruby's design draws from lisp and other sophisticated languages.
>
>It would be interesting to design a new typesetting language.  :) It
>should have namespaces, lexical scoping, functions/procedures,
>objects, and labeled loop constructs like perl (and Java, IIRC).
>
>These language features would eliminate a lot of the hairier
>shenanighans that the ConTeXt developers have to go through in order
>to do interesting things.

Last week i downloaded some ruby documentation and i was impressed too, 
looks pretty clean and ok. So, when i have time ...

With regards to typesetting, hairy indeed, but in many cases it's the 
problem itself that is also hairy; also recently i added a couple of things 
to context that i should have added before, since they would hav esaved me 
much time -)

Hans
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE | pragma@wxs.nl
                       Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
  tel: +31 (0)38 477 53 69 | fax: +31 (0)38 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                        information: http://www.pragma-ade.com/roadmap.pdf
                     documentation: http://www.pragma-ade.com/showcase.pdf
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: Re[2]: Perl is evil, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ruby, Python is the way to go!

[Ed L Cashin]

Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl> writes:

...
> With regards to typesetting, hairy indeed, but in many cases it's
> the problem itself that is also hairy; also recently i added a
> couple of things to context that i should have added before, since
> they would hav esaved me much time -)

One of the nice things about context is that there's been a lot of
attention paid to its infrastructure.  So you've already got, for
example, nestable looping constructs if I recall correctly.

-- 
--Ed L Cashin            |   PGP public key:
  ecashin@uga.edu        |   http://noserose.net/e/pgp/

Re: Re[2]: Perl is evil, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ruby, Python is the way to go!

[Arun]

On Thursday, July 18, 2002, at 11:39 AM, Hans Hagen wrote:
>
> Last week i downloaded some ruby documentation and i was impressed too, 
> looks pretty clean and ok. So, when i have time ...
>

Ruby will be installed by default on the next Mac OS X, along with Perl 
and Python, so mac users will not need to install anything extra if you 
decide to go in this direction....

- Arun

Re: Re[2]: Perl is evil, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ruby, Python is the way to go!

[Johannes Hüsing]

On Thu, Jul 18, 2002 at 10:06:47AM -0400, Ed L Cashin wrote:
[...]
> It would be interesting to design a new typesetting language.  :) It
> should have namespaces, lexical scoping, functions/procedures,
> objects, and labeled loop constructs like perl (and Java, IIRC).
> 

Wasn't that part of the idea of NTS?

Greetings

Johannes
-- 
Johannes Hüsing   There is something fascinating about science. One gets
hannes@ruhrau.de  such wholesale returns of conjecture from such a 
                  trifling investment of fact.                Mark Twain

Re: Re[2]: Perl is evil, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ruby, Python is the way to go!

[Ed L Cashin]

Johannes Hüsing <hannes@ruhrau.de> writes:

> On Thu, Jul 18, 2002 at 10:06:47AM -0400, Ed L Cashin wrote:
> [...]
> > It would be interesting to design a new typesetting language.  :) It
> > should have namespaces, lexical scoping, functions/procedures,
> > objects, and labeled loop constructs like perl (and Java, IIRC).
> > 
> 
> Wasn't that part of the idea of NTS?

I don't know.  When I saw a demo, they were emphasising its ability to
act like tex.  The example they showed was a run where the NTS system
processed the source for the TeXbook.  It was orders of magnitude
slower than Knuth's tex, so some people did not seem impressed.

The website at nts.tug.org states that:

  Since NTS V0 is intended to be an exact re-implementation of TeX,
  some have suggested (only partially in jest) that it be renamed
  "OTS" ("Old Typesetting System"); certainly this alternative name is
  a more accurate description for the first release, but it does
  little to emphasise the extensible nature of NTS; for that reason,
  the project will continue to be called NTS, and it is hoped that
  Karel will also be in a position to demonstrate this extensibility
  by leading an "Extending NTS" workshop at TUG 2000.

... so it doesn't sound as ambitious as what I was suggesting -- a new
language that had all those features right in it.  NTS seems to be the
old system but with greater possibilities for extension.

-- 
--Ed L Cashin            |   PGP public key:
  ecashin@uga.edu        |   http://noserose.net/e/pgp/

Re[4]: Perl is evil, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ruby, Python is the way to go!

[Giuseppe Bilotta]

Thursday, July 18, 2002 Ed L Cashin wrote:

ELC> I shared your hesitations regarding Python.  When I heard about ruby
ELC> it seemed too good to be true, and I kept thinking that I wouldn't
ELC> ever prefer ruby to perl because it wouldn't have such-and-such
ELC> feature, but the more I learned about it the more impressed I was.  I
ELC> now do prefer ruby.  

ELC> While it's easy to use perl in a clean way, it's easier in ruby, and
ELC> ruby's design draws from lisp and other sophisticated languages.

A lot of Ruby say that a proficient Perl programmer (and I guess
Hans and Taco fall in this category) can grasp the core of Rupy in
one day, and 95% of it in a couple of days. So it probably
wouldn't be too hard to switch.

ELC> It would be interesting to design a new typesetting language.  :) It
ELC> should have namespaces, lexical scoping, functions/procedures,
ELC> objects, and labeled loop constructs like perl (and Java, IIRC).

ELC> These language features would eliminate a lot of the hairier
ELC> shenanighans that the ConTeXt developers have to go through in order
ELC> to do interesting things.

Well, I was thinking of Ruby as a scripting language (to obtain
texexec.rb, texutil.rb & co), but now that you make me think of it
...

TeX in Ruby? Wow, sounds interesting!

-- 
Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta

Re: Perl is evil, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ruby, Python is the way to go!

[John Culleton]

On Tuesday 09 July 2002 06:19 pm, Patrick Gundlach wrote:
> Giuseppe Bilotta <gip.bilotta@iol.it> writes:
> > Well, that's precisely the kind of thing where Perl is being
> > (ab)used for, and another language would be better :)
>
Ah, yes, the search for the perfect language. I remember when APL (which
was built around the keyboard of a long-departed IBM terminal) was considered
the salvation of Western Civilization. Then there was PL/I. It did everything 
possible, and did it with such inefficiency that even IBM in its heyday 
couldn't market it sucessfully. I see no fatal defects in texexec, and until
one is demonstrated changing languages "just because" seems a waste of
scarce Hans-power.  There are lots of neat features that need to be added-
debugged and/or documented in Context.  I wouldn't presume to suggest what 
should be done next, but searching for the Holy Grail of the more perfect
scripting language is pretty far down on the priority list, IMHO. 

John Culleton

__________________________________________________
D O T E A S Y - "Join the web hosting revolution!"
             http://www.doteasy.com

Re: Perl is evil, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ruby, Python is the way to go!

[Taco Hoekwater]

I wholeheartedly agree with John. To put it another way: if someone
really wants texexec.py or texexec.rb, that person should write 
(and maintain) the scripts.

On Tue, 9 Jul 2002 19:32:27 -0400
"John Culleton" <john@wexfordpress.com> wrote:

> debugged and/or documented in Context.  I wouldn't presume to suggest what 
> should be done next, but searching for the Holy Grail of the more perfect
> scripting language is pretty far down on the priority list, IMHO. 
> 
> John Culleton
> 
> 
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-- 
groeten,

Taco

Re: Perl is evil, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ruby, Python is the way to go!

[Johannes Hüsing]

On Wed, Jul 10, 2002 at 09:28:46AM +0200, Taco Hoekwater wrote:
> 
> I wholeheartedly agree with John. To put it another way: if someone
> really wants texexec.py or texexec.rb, that person should write 
> (and maintain) the scripts.
> 

One thing I am thinking about is tinkering with texfont. There is a
somewhat rudimentary font installer which comes with the Debian GNU/Linux
distribution called the Debian Font Manager. I would like to build a 
version of texfont that is in line with the architecture of this package,
so new fonts that are installed within Debian (for X and PostScript) are
automatically set up for ConTeXt.

But then, time ...

Johannes
-- 
Johannes Hüsing   There is something fascinating about science. One gets
hannes@ruhrau.de  such wholesale returns of conjecture from such a 
                  trifling investment of fact.                Mark Twain