[benhoskins]

Seems to be missing the obvious; ruby and python (with some framework sugar) will mostly allow you there quicker than writing java with its framework sugar. I guess the trade off is rather quick to write as opposed to quick to execute. Interestingly, i also hear my colleagues say this about C and Java. Seems to be a recurring question of human understanding vs machine, no?

[dknight]

Wow. I am interested to know how C is reinventing the wheel. Do tell us more about it.

[spobo]

I think he's saying Java is recreating what C made.I don't agree since Java allows writing of code at a higher level. (with a garbage collector etc)

Every programming language sort of recreates the basics. They are the basics after all. The neat programming languages/frameworks are the ones that 'reinvent' something. Do something in a completely new way. On a programminglanguage-level it's difficult. A lot of the practices were already invented in early languages like lisp, eifel & smalltalk.

I like Ruby because it's not ashamed of taking the great parts from other programming languages and putting it together in an easily understandable language.

[benhoskins]

Nope, i'm saying is that the more you abstract and take out of the way of the coder, the quicker they can write code. Java did this to C type languages, and people got quicker. Ruby and python did this to Java. But the inverse im often told by my C colleagues is that the abstraction means you fundamentally lose control of performance. I don't agree with this statement, but what I do agree with is that if you want high level, human oriented lprogramming languages that you can quickly write code in, you need to solve very similar problems