Open Source Languages Rumble At OSCON 197
blackbearnh writes "Everybody knows what the best programming language is, it's whatever one you like the most. But is there a best language overall? Or even a best language for a given purpose? This question has been debated since the first time there were two languages to choose from. The argument is still going on, of course, but maybe a little light will be shed on the issue this week at OSCON. On Wednesday night at 7PM Pacific, representatives of the 5 major open source languages (perl, PHP, Python, Java and Ruby), as arbitrarily decided by O'Reilly, will meet to debate the merits of their various languages. If you're not going to be at OSCON, you can watch it live on a webcast and pose questions or comments to the participants. The representatives are: Python: Alex Martelli, Google; Ruby: Brian Ford, Engine Yard; PHP: Laura Thomson, Mozilla; Perl: Jim Brandt, Perl Foundation; Java: Rod Johnson, SpringSource."
Re:No C or C++ (Score:4, Interesting)
I really should write it down. I will forget some points. For each feature, I will list a language that actually implements this feature
I probably forgot a lot, but it's a start, no?
Re:what does open mean? (Score:3, Interesting)
Then there's the C-compatibility stuff, that you'd never use in a pure-C++ program. They're just there to stay compatible with C (which is very important, but if you're writing something from scratch, you're not likely to malloc in C++).
These things aren't deprecated, but they are in the "lower level" bracket of C++, and in most situations are there to write the higher-level classes/templates. And since almost any container you're likely to need already exists in the STL, you're not likely to find them in a program that leans on the STL.
That's kind of the philosophy of Accelerated C++ [acceleratedcpp.com], in which the higher-level elements are covered first, and only then does it delve into the lower levels (which is the reverse way of how C++ is learned in academia).
I suppose that the main problem C++ has is its breadth (which I guess is what you meant when you said "complex beast").
(this comment didn't really go anywhere, but I'll post it anyway...)