@Path("/hello")
    @Produces(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)
    class HelloController {
      class Greeting {
        public Greeting(String name) {
          this.content = "Hello, " + name;
        }
        public final String content;
      }

      @GET
      public Greeting greet(@PathParam("name") String name) {
        return new Greeting(name);
      }
    }

    > curl http://localhost:8080/hello?name=me
    {"content": "Hello, me"}

  get '/hello/:name' do
    content_type :json
    {:content => "Hello, #{params[:name]}"}.to_json
  end

"public static void main()" isn't a lot of code. It's three keywords, and one identifier. You may consider it a lot of characters, but it's pretty rare that a programmers bottleneck is speed of typing.

I wish people would stop confusing "number of characters" with "amount of code".

And FWIW, I find your example far harder to decipher. I have to know what => means, # means, what : means, etc etc etc.

Add to that, in your example, if you typo one of those characters, your code may well still run, but will fail. With Java, if you typo a single character, it's more likely the code just won't compile.

We could all code in regular expressions or something akin to that, maybe perl one liners. But "number of characters" isn't a good aim. Readable, maintainable, well written code is.

I think you are being pedantic about characters vs code. But, for what it's worth, I disagree. You are having to create 2 classes, define a field, a constructor and use four framework specific annotation. I consider all of that code (made up of characters).

Both versions should be unit tested. The unit test might be more important in the Ruby version, but so too will it be easier to write.

The other point I'd make is that Java is probably about as verbose as english is. But we all manage, using English. We don't moan on and on that talking, writing, reading is so inefficient and we should all switch to something better. English also has odd grammar and spelling rules which are inconsistent and plain stupid sometimes. Yet, English works pretty well for what we use it for. Communicating.

Why is Java considered inefficient and English not? Maybe because we don't need to create a new class for every concept in English. Yours is a pretty poor analogy; English vocabulary is extensive but it is not inherently verbose.

Anyway I am only writing not to say you are wrong, but rather, since other people are arguing with you reasonably and you are dismissing them without consideration, your argumentation is wrong.

No. I'd rather read "int foo; bar.printLn()" than "%foo => &bar :print"

Less special characters. More words.

Each to their own though.

"An unordered tuple Z going from a1 to an is a defined as for every x in Z then x is a1 or x is a2 ... or x is an"

than

"An unordered tuple Z (a1,...,an) is defined as [x : x = a1 v x = a2 v ... x = an]"?

I take that as not being (or not wanting to be) familiar with the language you are reading. If you'll read Ruby, at least browse a manual to know what {} and # mean.

I'll agree with that wholeheartedly.

You've made this argument in multiple posts now, so I'm just going to point out here that people doing science and engineering use formal, mathematical notations precisely because they do offer more precise and concise ways of expressing the necessary technical concepts.

There are plenty of reasons to criticise some of those notations with hindsight, but "not being English" is not among them.

So rather than defending the code example on merit, you dive into pedantic nit-picking territory. I used to be defensive about my choice language as well, till I matured and realized holding onto sacred cows just hurts your ability to learn from others doing it better and being more productive; and just clouds your ability to choose the right tool for the job.

More code = more code, to read, to decipher, that hides intent, that adds complexity, that can have bugs and can go wrong. Code-size is codes worst enemy.

I don't even know Ruby, but it's implementation is vastly more readable and would look a lot closer to what the perfect DSL would look like for this task, than the Java example.

      @GET
      public Map<String,String> greet(@PathParam("name") String name) {
        return singletonMap( "content", "Hello, " + name );
      }

By changing a single line, the java version can also produce XML or text response. By changing two lines, it can also respond to POST requests.

And that's just the top of the iceberg. Oh, and in the ends, it's way faster than Node, Ruby, Python and most of the dynamic languages.

   response = {:content => "Hello, #{params[:name]}"}
   respond_to do |wants|
      wants.json { response.to_json } 
      wants.xml { response.to_xml }
   end

I actually cannot write your example easily in Sinatra/Ruby/etc, without making my object either a Hash or an ORM subclass, customizing serialization, or pulling in uncommon libraries.

Here's your complete example, in reasonable Ruby. It's longer than the Java.

    class Greeting < Struct.new(:content)
      def content
        "Hello, #{super.content}"
      end
  
      def to_xml
        {:content => content}.to_xml
      end

      def to_json
        {:content => content}.to_json
      end
    end

    get '/hello' do

      response = { :content => Greeting.new(params[:name]) }

      respond_to do |wants|
        wants.json { response.to_json } 
        wants.xml { response.to_xml }
      end
    end

    class Greeting 
      include JsonObject
      field :content
      def content
        "Hello, #{@content}"
      end
    end

    get '/hello' do

      response = { :content => Greeting.new(params[:name]) }

      respond_to do |wants|
        wants.json { response.to_json } 
        wants.xml { response.to_xml }
      end
    end

Java makes the assumption that you need a lot of boilerplate code, so being able to make changes easily seems like a big deal. Other languages avoid that boilerplate and can make the changes just as easily for free.

That's twice as many lines you need to replace as in Sinatra:

    get '/hello/:name' do

    route :get, :post '/hello/:name' do

If you think this is a feature, you might actually like Sinatra/Ruby :)