On 17/11/06, Sonia Hamilton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I'm thinking of learning Ruby - is there an easy way of running Perl and Python code/libraries from Ruby? I've googled and browsed manuals in Dymocks Library ^H^H^H Bookshop, can't seem to find an answer. Reason I ask is that I want to learn Ruby for Ruby on Rails, but there's so much good stuff in the existing Perl and Python libraries/cpan.
Deviating from the stream of suggestions and pointers sent by others - I'd like to suggest you to reconsider that strategy - if you want to learn a new language then you better "immerse" yourself in its tools and way of thinking. It suspect that by looking for Ruby to wrap Perl/Python you are setting yourself a trap where you'll end up using Ruby/Rails as a thin shell in front of the real code. That's how you end up with people writing Shell Scripts the way they write C programs (e.g. not realizing they can treat the "source code" as data, as I've just seen on another linux mailing list) or, as happened to me when I tried to lean C++ after years of programming C - using C++ and ostreams/istreams and overloaded operators as glorified C instead of actually taking advantage of the new way of thinking the language encourages. I don't know Ruby and hardly know Python but I think the above is applicable for any new language and computing environment you want to get really comfortable with. Cheers, --P -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
