Ruby vs Python

I don't use Rails at all. But I do use Ruby a lot. I was exposed to Ruby first, but when I made a stab at learning Python I quickly decided to stick with Ruby.

I think Ruby as a language is cleaner and easier to get used to than Python, at least for most users. I think that's a big advantage in gaining widespread adoption. Additionally, The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide to Ruby is a terrific book for both new users and people just looking for a reference manual, and it's not clear to me that Python has anything similar (recommendations I've gotten for books to use to learn Python are pale shadows by comparison).

I think this relatively low barrier to entry means Ruby is getting a lot of new, enthusiastic programmers, and since Ruby and Python occupy similar space in the programmer's toolbox, it's really going to be an either-or choice for most programmers; once they've decided they like one better than the other - or, more significantly, once they've started investing in a code base written in one or the other - it's going to be tough to get them to switch. So getting that mindshare among the brand-new users is crucial.

Unless I have to use it for professional reasons, I doubt I'll ever use Python.

Even my hobby projects need to handle unicode strings. Ruby loses.

Ruby gets the mindshare largely due to Rails, and partially due to some ex-Smalltalk "thought leaders" who planted early seeds. Coming from Smalltalk, Ruby is a pretty nice language, except for that unicode thing. If Django had gotten there first with a few extra features (scaffolding comes to mind, and perhaps baked-in integration with some JavaScript package), and had an opinionated loudmouth to promote it, Django might have a larger slice of mindshare right now.

I wonder, though, if Python took some guilt-by-association knocks from Zope. I have friends who will either start twitching or turn and walk away if the Z word gets mentioned. Ruby arrived with no such baggage.

I suspect all these frameworks of being Powerbuilder (or at least mid-90s PB).

Heh on Zope being a big associational negative. Yeah.

@Zink, these frameworks are all really only suitable for what I choose to refer to as "MS-Access class applications" - forms and reports around relational databases. My rails programmer friends take it personally - and then go off to code yet another form that inserts rows in a relational database.

Ruby's implementation is a huge pile of fail too though. I was reading this morning about a Ruby interpreter written in JavaScript that's 5 times as fast as the "production" ruby vm: http://ejohn.org/blog/ruby-vm-in-javascript/

Compare SQLAlchemy with Datamapper. The Python one is just depressingly primitive compared to the Ruby one. But what good does it do if the foundation language is riddled with dry rot?

And what about COBOL On Cogs?

Ha. David slung me that link last night. Pretty funneh. I love the flicker. "Audio cassettes, screenshots, and binders full of printouts!"