Infoworld: Ruby, Clojure, and Ceylon: Same goal, three very different results

Charles Nutter, Rich Hickey, and Gavin King each discovered that 'simplicity' doesn't mean the same thing. Computer languages reflect the goals, target audiences, and to some degree the personalities of their creators and their communities. As a result, even languages that are created with similar goals in mind may yield highly disparate final results, depending on how their communities understand those goals. Ruby, Clojure, and Ceylon are three such languages.

In interviewing Ruby's Nutter, Clojure's Hickey, and Ceylon's King, I was surprised at how -- despite ending up with vastly divergent outcomes -- they share common goals and viewpoints. Each believe their language is designed to simplify the job of the developer, yet the approaches they each take toward achieving that simplicity vary wildly.

Read the rest of my article over at InfoWorld (minus the picture courtesy of Tara Fusco).. Special thanks to Gavin for letting us make him into an ogre.

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