From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 2349 invoked by alias); 8 Dec 2014 23:00:48 -0000 Mailing-List: contact cygwin-talk-help@cygwin.com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: cygwin-talk-owner@cygwin.com Reply-To: The Vulgar and Unprofessional Cygwin-Talk List Mail-Followup-To: cygwin-talk@cygwin.com Received: (qmail 2335 invoked by uid 89); 8 Dec 2014 23:00:47 -0000 Authentication-Results: sourceware.org; auth=none X-Virus-Found: No X-Spam-SWARE-Status: No, score=0.1 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_50,T_RP_MATCHES_RCVD autolearn=ham version=3.3.2 X-HELO: etr-usa.com Received: from etr-usa.com (HELO etr-usa.com) (130.94.180.135) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.93/v0.84-503-g423c35a) with ESMTP; Mon, 08 Dec 2014 23:00:46 +0000 Received: (qmail 8535 invoked by uid 13447); 8 Dec 2014 23:00:44 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO polypore.west.etr-usa.com) ([73.26.17.49]) (envelope-sender ) by 130.94.180.135 (qmail-ldap-1.03) with AES128-SHA encrypted SMTP for ; 8 Dec 2014 23:00:44 -0000 From: Warren Young Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Subject: I have a dream: A modern scripting language everywhere Message-Id: <26DFE265-C444-48DC-B1A6-1E4596EB9366@etr-usa.com> Date: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 23:00:00 -0000 To: cygwin-talk@cygwin.com Mime-Version: 1.0 (Mac OS X Mail 7.3 \(1878.6\)) X-IsSubscribed: yes X-SW-Source: 2014-q4/txt/msg00001.txt.bz2 It=92s sad that we still can=92t count on stronger scripting languages than= POSIX shell and Awk in 2014. We have many better languages, but none are = part of POSIX, so we can=92t count on having them everywhere. Perl and Python are probably too big for The Open Group to make one of them= a requirement for receiving the right to use the Unix trademark. I don=92= t see another organization that could move all *ix-likes to adopt such a la= nguage. If the standards groups won=92t do it, that leaves us with de facto standar= ds. Red Hat and Google are trying to push Python for this, but I don=92t th= ink either has enough power to move competing organizations on this. And a= gain, Python is too big to be part of a =93small parts, loosely joined=94 O= S definition. Lua is small and liberally-licensed, but a bit too impoverished in its stoc= k form to be an effective improvement on the current state. FSF failed to push Scheme/Guile into this role, for which I give thanks. That=92s part of the problem, of course: getting a bunch of fractious geeks= to agree on a syntax. Awk and Ksh got into POSIX when AT&T + Sun had the = combined might to force them through the process. The *ix world is too dif= fuse now for that. I love the Javascript dialect (!) of Scheme. Say what you want against JS;= it could be better, but those who say it=92s the worst language on the pla= net are either ignorant or being hyperbolic. But, fan though I am, I=92ll quickly acknowledge that Javascript isn=92t go= ing to solve this problem any time soon, either. The universality of the w= eb has pushed a JS interpreter onto pretty much every computing device big = enough to have a keyboard, but the only hope for turning it into an effecti= ve Unix scripting language is coming via node.js, and they=92re years away = from adding enough library support to JS to make it fit for such a battle. I think only Ruby is powerful enough, small enough, and non-controversial e= nough to solve this. It=92s Perlish and Pythonic and Scheme-like enough to= have wide appeal and applicability. I=92m not a Ruby fan. I came up via = Perl, and Ruby never struck me as different enough to be worth switching. = But, if I could count on Ruby everywhere, that would change things. Swift would be a nice solution, but it=92ll never really escape the confine= s of the Apple world. The same goes for any of the .NET languages, even wi= th all this new openness. Anyone else see a path out of this situation?