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by James Robertson.
Original Post: Key words from Avi
Feed Title: Travis Griggs - Blog
Feed URL: http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/rssBlog/travis-rss.xml
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Avi Bryant has some great things to say about C++, Java, Ruby, and Smalltalk. I read the whole thing thinking, "yeah, yeah, yeah." Well written piece. I had the same thoughts after OOPSLA this year. Cincom ought to warp a verison of VisualWorks to create a Ruby IDE/VM.
I do not ever remember feeling as a Smalltalker that Java was a sort of underhanded last laugh in the C++ vs Smalltalk wars. I have no love for Java (but would admittedly use it before C++). Ruby I like though.
One thing I dearly miss in all of them though is keyword message syntax. Just yesterday, I was writing some C code (wouldn't have mattered if it were C++ or Java). Three arguments. No matter how I worded it, there was just no way to make it look good. It's a big part of that "expressiveness" thing. Lisp, Smalltalk, and Objective-C got this right. The algol people didn't.
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