On: Why OO Sucks

[bad_user]

Actually that's not true. Functions in Ruby aren't first class citizens, and for a given function you can't request / modify it's syntax tree.

Otherwise, I consider the blur between code and data a good thing to have.

[andreyf → bad_user]

Functions in Ruby aren't first class citizens...

You can assign them to a variable, and you can write out a function literal. What more does it take to be a "first-class citizen"?

...for a given function you can't request / modify it's syntax tree

And what language does let you do that? Macro systems like let you do it at compile-time, but when you use the phrase "request an AST", it sounds like you're doing it at runtime...

[pygy → andreyf]

> And what language does let you do that?

Io does.

http://hackety.org/2008/01/05/ioHasAVeryCleanMirror.html

But functions are first class objects in Ruby (with some quirks regarding the difference between a proc and a bloc).

[bad_user → andreyf]

Well, Lisp.

And even in C# 3.0, when passing lambda expressions you can request a syntax tree instead of a method reference.

[snprbob86 → bad_user]

Not at runtime... This occurs at compile time by assigning to a variable of type Expression.

F#, like OCaml, supports proper quotation and allows you to create executable code, or ASTs, or both using metadata attributes that the compiler is aware of.

[sunkencity → bad_user]

Well, with ruby you can at least pretend they are, but yea.