Python vs Ruby

[Martin von Loewis]

"James Lockley" <jpl at global.co.za> writes:

> Just been reading a "Ruby centric" comparison of Ruby vs Python on:
> http://helium.ruby-lang.org/en/compar.html
> 
> would be interested to hear the Pythonista view....

As far as I can tell, all of them are facts, not opinions, which is a
good thing. Most of them are correct, which is also a good think.

Incorrect is the claim
  Ruby has "real" garbage collector, not ref-counting.

While this is correct also, it implies that Python has ref-counting
and no "real" garbage collector, which is not true for Python 2.0.

The implication of the conclusion
#  Not subject to memory leaks like ref-counting is. 

is likewise incorrect - in Python 2.0, the memory leaks of reference
counting disappear also. The implication from the other conclusion
#  No INCREF, DECREF are required for extensions.
is still correct - INCREF, DECREF are required for extensions.
I don't know how exactly GC works in Ruby - it is likely that
it suffers from things that people would consider as drawbacks, though.

#  Ruby is often faster than Python.
That I would not believe without proof.

Regards,
Martin