Ruby programs are maybe a tenth the size, give or take,
Python similarly small.
Haskell will blow your mind because you basically never use control structures or type declarations.
Continuation-passing scheme, smalltalk, erlang...
Any of these things will change the way you develop, probably immensely for the better.
BTW my feedback on your work http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=17871
Next time just Google for "Ruby standalone". Saves me the trouble of doing it for you ;)
If I have to google for it and come up with a 3rd party tool, then it isnt part of the language!
And FYI, I wasnt writing my comment in complete ignorance nor laziness. I did go to the ror site when I first heard of it here on YC. When I realized it seemed to be a scripting language with a web server, I lost interest. Offline is very important for me/juwo.
No, it's the difference between Turing imperative (e.g. C++, Java, etc.) and Lamdba calculus (lisp, erlang, ocaml, etc.) which is significant.
You're correct in that there is a direct line from the Turing imperative to the underlying assembly code, but given the choice between writing Lambda expressions or Turing expressions, why would you pick the latter?
that is what I meant by old wine in new bottles.
But why code in a Turing style (whether it's Java or assembly) when lambda programming is more efficient?
That's the point all the lambda folks are making.
No, I am talking about - at a deeper level, all computing can be reduced to a Turing machine. (Unless you are reading Roger Penrose on consciousness).
Maybe I am mistaken, I am out of touch.
A Turing machine can simulate a deterministic finite automaton and a non-deterministic finite automaton.
All systems are arguably either of these two. Perhaps that's why we can simulate weather, and lots of other things.
Unless you look at human consciousness - Nobelist Roger Penrose has a theory that the mind is not a computer. That it has quantum states. (his book: The Emperor's New Mind - I didnt finish it - long and hard).
old wine in new bottles.
if-then-else by any other name... is just as tedious.