On Tue, 17 May 2005, Steve Holdoway wrote:
I'm sorry, but it's the *operating system* that provides the ability to glue programs together. *nix os's work fine, but try using the tools you describe on one of Wesleys toys and see how much glue you find. To the best of my knowledge, *all* languages that run on *nix have the ability to read stdin/write to stdout, so by your definition, all languages are glue. But without the | functionality provided by the os, that's meaningless.
Curiously enough Ruby has worked quite hard at making a lot of it's Posix IPC glue modules OS neutral.
ie. A ruby one liner TCP client or server app works unaltered on Unix / Mac / Windows.
The worst portability problems I had was things that invoked an underlying shell. ie. Windows "cmd.exe". I rapidly learn to wrap such things in a compatibility layer...
if RUBY_PLATFORM =~ /linux/i
def cmd( command)
do stuff linux way
end
else
def cmd( command)
do stuff windows way
end
endThe main problem with ruby on Windows is the lack of things to glue! Windows is just so lacking.
I call perl,ruby,python glue languages because they are Good at that.
However, glueing Big Fat Stiff apps together are by far not the only thing they are Good at.
They are excellent for rapidly writing Big Thin Flexible Apps.
I would also called them prime data mining languages as well.
John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait Electronics Fax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 Christchurch Email : [EMAIL PROTECTED] New Zealand
We all live but seconds away from pain and death, yet we live as though it wasn't even possible.
We are but one person amongst 6 billion, yet we live as though we, personally, matter.
So, as you were saying... how real did you want me to get?
