Hyperpolyglot: PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby

by tathagatadg • 15 years ago

311 54 15 years ago

gfodor2• 15 years ago

That these languages are so similar a table like this is possible leads one to think those programmers who consider themselves "polyglot" by programming in a subset of these aren't really "polyglot" at all.

snprbob86• 15 years ago

Go to http://hyperpolyglot.org/ directly.

Included there:

    Scripting Languages:         PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby
    Embeddable Languages:        Tcl, Lua, JavaScript, Io
    Shell Languages:             Bash, Zsh, AppleScript, PowerShell
    C Style Languages:           C, C++, Objective C, Java, C#
    Pascal Style Languages:      Pascal, Ada, PL/SQL, SQL/PSM
    Lisp Dialects:               Common Lisp, Scheme, Clojure, Emacs Lisp
    Type Inference Languages:    Standard ML, OCaml, Scala, Haskell
    Declarative Languages:       Prolog, Erlang, Oz
    Concatenative Languages:     Forth, PostScript, Factor
    Computer Algebra Software:   Mathematica, Sage, Maxima
    Numerical Analysis Software: MATLAB, R

polynomial• 15 years ago

I would have liked for Go to have been included, (C style languages) not to mention Smalltalk.

gfodor2• 15 years ago

Ah didn't notice that. This site suddenly got a whole lot more awesome :)

rednaught• 15 years ago

Nice! I was going to suggest adding Lua and Tcl but they're available on the Embedded page. The link in the title goes to the Scripting page.

beaumartinez• 15 years ago

Neat, ridiculously comprehensive table. A few "warnings" I found in the first 10%:

> Python: Statement separator: ; or sometimes newline

More like newline or sometimes ;. When was the last time you saw a Python script with a semicolon?

> Python: Multiline comment: '''comment line\nanother line'''

That's a multiline string.

tvon• 15 years ago

The Python bits do not seem to be written by a Python programmer, at least things like the above and this "package management" entry make little sense:

  $ python
  >>> help('modules')
  download pkg with matching python version
  $ tar xf libxml2-python-2.6.0.tar.gz
  $ cd libxml2-python-2.6.0
  $ sudo python setup.py install

That's just bizarre.

dougws• 15 years ago

Yeah I came here to point this out. I'd understand if pip weren't mentioned, but easy_install has been the standard for many years.

petercooper3• 15 years ago

x.succ is not the Ruby equivalent of ++$x in PHP (or Perl). x.succ returns x + 1 (by default, on integers) but does not increment x as ++$x does (since numbers are immutable and that's what "x" is giving us in Ruby). The closest match would be x += 1 (shorthand for x = x + 1). I don't see x = x.succ in common usage but that would work too.

gb• 15 years ago

I don't disagree with what you're saying, but it does mention in the comment that x is not mutated.

petercooper3• 15 years ago

I totally didn't notice that note but the page doesn't seem to have been updated since then :-)

I still don't see why it doesn't just use the common syntax though that does the same thing. It's intriguing that the Python one has no example for that row. Perhaps they are specifically looking for idiomatic techniques, even if they're not commonly used.

I note that the page is on a wiki so I could fix it, but given it's been there for years, I suspect there's a good reason no-one has already made the change.

adyus• 15 years ago

As a Ruby noob and without researching too much, here's my question: would x.succ! do it?

petercooper3• 15 years ago

Not if x were a regular old Fixnum.

The reason is that x would be referring to a number like 1, 42, or whatever, and numbers are immutable in Ruby. You can't "change" a number in-place. If you could change Ruby's concept of 1 into 2, then 1 would cease to exist and that would be a Bad Thing™ :-)

jfarmer2• 15 years ago

Yeah, #succ is something else. For example, if your object supports #succ then you can use it in ranges.

e.g., (1..10), but also ("apple".."kiwis") or ('A'..'Z').

In this case, String#succ returns a string with the last alphanumeric character transformed into its successor, e.g., "apple".succ == "applef".

The only time I've used it is implementing the range interface; I've never called it directly, let alone to increment an integer.

neutronicus• 15 years ago

I assume you mean "apple".succ == "applf" ?

benatkin• 15 years ago

I think this shows that much of the time, the choice of open source scripting language isn't going to make or break a project. Ditto for well-maintained web frameworks.

http://www.slideshare.net/joestump/starting-your-startup/65

systems• 15 years ago

Well it may not make or break a start-up but it definitely help push it one direction or the other

As much as I love Perl, if I want local partners I'd better choose Ruby

lubutu2• 15 years ago

These tables are comprehensive, but the authors don't seem to actually understand the languages' idioms.

Over on the ISWIM-family page the Haskell "command line args" program is ten lines long, when it could be:

  import System
  main = getArgs >>= mapM_ putStrLn

I wish these were written by people who knew the languages.

phaker4• 15 years ago

You can't create 'idiomatic polyglots'. You just hack things together until they sorta work, for more than few languages this basically involves large strings and lots of backslashes, or base64 or something like that. (Writing a polyglot that does something more clever is obviously much better style, but it's incredibly hard.)

lubutu2• 15 years ago

"Polyglot" in this case is referring to a person who can write in multiple languages, not a program written in multiple languages.

jsnell• 15 years ago

Different definitions. You seem to be thinking of programs that are valid in multiple languages. The page is more of a dictionary of language constructs.

tincholio2• 15 years ago

Maybe you could contact them with the suggestion?

(There's at least couple more errors on the Haskell column, a typo, and a missing idiom for their 'each' example, which would be 'mapM_ print', basically).

Udo3• 15 years ago

Neat table, one thing about PHP's member variables compared to Python/Ruby seems inaccurate though. In the example "define class", the member variable $value is declared private and then accessed through a getter and a setter, while the corresponding Python and Ruby examples use a public variable and hence look cleaner. The equivalent PHP version should be more along the lines of:

  class Int {
    function __construct($int = 0) {
      $this->value = $int;
    }
  }

instead of the ridiculously verbose thing they posted there.

msbarnett• 15 years ago

The Ruby example actually involves generating the getter and setter at runtime via attr_accessor.

In contrast to Python, in Ruby all instance member variables are private.

Udo3• 15 years ago

Yes, but functionally the Ruby example is the equivalent of a public member variable. Since those are public by default in PHP, there is no need to complicate the code by first making it private and then implementing a getter and a setter.

grncdr2• 15 years ago

Speaking of ridiculously verbose, if they're going to pull in Moose to do OO in Perl they could at least use it's ability to provide default arguments instead of abusing BUILDARGS:

   package Int;
   use Moose;
   has 'value' => ( is => 'rw', isa => 'Int', default => 0 );
   no Moose;

Of course, Moose (while awesome) is hardly the only approach to OO in Perl:

   package Int;
   
   sub new {
       my $cls = shift;
       $cls = ref($cls) || $cls;
       my $val = shift or 0;
       bless \$val, $cls;
   }

   sub getValue { ${$_[0]} }
   1;

Rather than wrapping the scalar int inside another data structure to be treated as an "object" it's possible to just take a reference and use that as our object. So in this case getValue is really just a verbose way to dereference ($int->getValue vs. $$int).

If you don't care about inheritance you could also take out the first two lines of ``new`` and just have:

   package Int;
   sub new { bless \($_[0] or 0) }
   sub getValue { ${$_[0]} }
   1;

Disclaimer: this kind of code is usually considered terrible Perl style and why people have such a hang up about the language, don't take this as idiomatic

Edit: Just noticed that they seem to think instance variables in Perl are private by default. Not sure where they got that idea? I guess Moose attributes are read-only by default, but that's hardly the same thing.

olliesaunders• 15 years ago

http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Rosetta_Code may be more comprehensive although not as immediately accessible

nivertech• 15 years ago

REPL for Python: ipython

georgefox• 15 years ago

Some of the PHP stuff, as others have noted with Python, etc., is misleading or outdated.

Backticks work:

    echo `ls`;

Constants can be declared globally:

    const PI = 3.14;

Anonymous functions can be declared without create_function:

    $f = function($x) { return $x*$x; }

I'm sure there are more. That said, I love these sorts of side-by-side comparisons.

treetrouble• 15 years ago

There is a lot of non-idiomatic Ruby as well

k33l0r• 15 years ago

Also it doesn't tell you that 'and' and 'or' are not equal to && and || in Ruby. http://hyperpolyglot.org/scripting#logical-operators

hippich• 15 years ago

I might be incorrect regarding Perl's "scan" function, but I think you can implement it like this:

  my $s = "foo bar baz";
  my @b = $s =~ /\w+/g;

Granted, this is not a scanf, but neither are PHP/Python/Ruby examples.

Qa8BBatwHxK8Pu• 15 years ago

Python dosen't have NULL/NIL?

dheerosaur• 15 years ago

Python has "None".

SimHacker• 15 years ago

It has no null??! Who's on first?

Kwpolska• 15 years ago

python, statement separator: not "sometimes", but "usually"

python, multiline comment: not quite. print '''foo''' outputs "foo". This is a string literal, and """foo""" is more popular.

smilliken• 15 years ago

Under variable interpolation, there is nothing listed for python, but the equivalent is this:

    count = 3
    item = "ball"
    print('%(count)s %(item)ss' % locals())

akivabamberger• 15 years ago

needs numpy filled out (for MATLAB/R) but otherwise really cool!

Hyperpolyglot: PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby

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