Dynamic Languages Don't Live In The Scripting Language Ghetto
Dynamic Languages Don't Live In The Scripting Language Ghetto
Submitted by Corey Goldberg on Sun, 16/03/2008 - 16:08.I love this sarcastic rant by Ryan Tomayko from March 2006. In the article, he rubutts some of James Gosling's comments regarding Java vs. dynamic languages. Ryan pokes some fun at comments about dynamic languages and why they should be taken seriously; rather than thrown into the "scripting language ghetto".
My favorite part:
"Dealing with questions on dynamic languages:
First, call anything not statically compiled a “scripting language”. Attempt to insinuate that all languages without an explicit compilation step are not to be taken seriously and that they are all equivalently shitty. Best results are achieved when you provide no further explanation of the pros and cons of static and dynamic compilation and/or typing and instead allow the reader to simply assume that there are a wealth of benefits and very few, if any, disadvantages to static compilation. While the benefits of dynamic languages–first realized millions of years ago in LISP and Smalltalk–are well understood in academia, IT managers and Sun certified developers are perfectly accepting of our static = professional / dynamic = amateurish labeling scheme.
This technique is also known to result in dynamic language advocates going absolute bat-shit crazy and making complete fools of themselves. There have been no fewer than three head explosions recorded as a result of this technique.
Also, avoid the term “dynamic language” at all cost. It’s important that the reader not be exposed to the concepts separating scripting languages like bash, MS-DOS batch, and perl-in-the-eighties from general purpose dynamic languages like Ruby, Python, Smalltalk, and Perl present day."
