This week I'm spending time working through David Black's Ruby for Rails book (hereinafter referred to as R4R) and helping Will Provost with his courseware. I'm working through the labs and demos in his Intro Java course, now that they've been ported to Java 5.
I'm okay with the enhanced for loop, and with variable arguments, and am getting used to enums. Generics are just plain ugly, and the inheritance aspect of them is very awkward. I thought I was going to really like generics, but now that I'm getting used to a dynamic typing language like Ruby, it all seems so unnecessary.
Six months ago if you'd asked me about dynamically typed languages, I would have said they were too error-prone to be useful. In other words, I would have given the standard Java answer. Now that I've spent time with Ruby and with JavaScript (of all things, but thanks, Ajax), I'm starting to see why they work so well. I'm also beginning to understand why every SmallTalk developer I've ever met loved that language.
I really need to assemble a "Ruby Traps for Java Developers" page, though.
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