[Arx-users] Other languages?

[Kevin Smith]

I have an odd love/hate relationship with C++. It's my third favorite 
language, and is my favorite non-dynamic (aka non-scripting) language. 
So one of the things that attracted me to ArX was the fact that it is 
written in C++.

However, many newer SCM engines and tools are being written in dynamic 
languages such as python. For all the non-processor-intensive parts, I 
think this makes a lot of sense, because it gives them a substantial 
advantage in terms of development speed and maintainability. It also 
widens the audience of potential code contributors, since many folks are 
intimidated by C++.

So I'm wondering if the ArX project might want to choose a preferred 
"higher level" language. Initially this would be for standalone tools 
built on top of ArX, like GUI tree browsers or perhaps quilt-like "patch 
refactoring" tools. At some point, it might actually make sense to 
rewrite the upper layers of ArX in this dynamic language.

Not to start a language war (please, please PLEASE don't start a 
language war here!), but I would propose ruby as that language. I have 
my own personal, irrational reasons to dislike python, perl and tcl, as 
well as any functional language (lisp, scheme, haskell). There are other 
SCM's in python, so I'm thinking python coders would already be drawn to 
those. Ruby fans like me have nowhere to go :-(

Questions for Walter in particular, but I'm interested in feedback from 
other ArX folks too:

1. Are you at all open to any kind of gradual shift toward a dynamic 
language?

2. Do you have any existing strong feelings about Ruby, positive or 
negative?

Kevin

P.S. My second favorite language, after Ruby, is Io. Sadly, it lacks a 
good GUI toolkit, so it's not a good candidate for this role.