Dynamic language

[Nick Sabalausky]

"so" <so at so.so> wrote in message 
news:uamqdkmnshxmvayeumbz at forum.dlang.org...
> Hello,
>
> Not related to D but this is a community which i can find at least a few 
> objective person. I want to invest some "quality" time on a dynamic 
> language but i am not sure which one. Would you please suggest one?
>
> To give you an idea what i am after:
> Of all one-liners i have heard only one gets me.
> "The programmable programming language". Is it true? If so Lisp will be my 
> first choice.
>


I'd say it depends:

- If can can tolerate the parenthesis-hell and goofy prefix notation 
(instead of infix), then LISP has been said to be the generalization of all 
other langauges. IIRC, I heard that it was created specifically as an 
example of a "programmable programming language".

- If you're looking for performace and practical real-world usage as a way 
to add scripting support to a program, Lua is considerd king for that.

- If you can stomach the indent-scoping, Python is very well-regarded and 
has a lot of fancy advanced features.

- If you don't like indent-scoping, Ruby is probably about the closest there 
is to a block-scoped Python.

- If you're looking for the most painful dynamic experince imaginable, 
ActionScript2 should be at the top of your list. Make sure to use all-Adobe 
tools, and the newest versions of each, so the whole experience will be 
*truly* unbearable.

I admit though, I'm not very familiar with the extent of the metaprogramming 
abilities of any of those languages.