Python and Ruby , object oriented questions

[Andrew Henshaw]

"A Meowbot" <meowbot at meowing.net> wrote in message
news:87y9s0fvyo.fsf at litterbox.meowing.net...
> > I am looking for reasons to avoid learning Ruby.
>
> Okay, this kind of thing has bugged me for the longest time.  What is
> the source of this meme, that there can be One and Only One Real True
> Language, and all others must be banished to the hinterlands?

I'll answer your next though first.
>
> I've found all along that the more languages I play with, the easier
> it becomes to play with yet more of them.  Do others find it works out
> differently for them, that carrying more than one language around just
> makes a mental mishmash of the others?

I'm sure that it works well for others.  In my case, if the language is
expressive and powerful enough, I prefer to immerse myself in that one
language for a while.  That way, my retention is better.

As to the first question, I believe that not everything one learns while
becoming an expert in a language will pay off for future work in other
languages.  There is a significant amount of time and effort involved in
discovering the nuances of Python's standard library, for example.  If I
continue to program in Python, then that effort pays off everytime I do a
project.  If I never touch Python again, then perhaps that effort would have
been better used elsewhere.

Well, then why wouldn't I continue to use Python?  I believe this is the
crux of the issue  - if a language doesn't attract a significant following,
it can lose momentum and two things **might** happen:

1)  new tools and libraries centered around the language aren't developed by
the programming community
2) the opportunity to use the language on customer-driven projects begins to
disappear

If I had to use Perl on a new project, right now - I'd be at least 20% less
productive - not just because of Python's advantages, but because of the
choices I've made in learning as much as I can about Python.  But if Python
didn't have such favorable buzz around it, I might find it hard to convince
companies that I contract with to let me use it.  This would mean less
profit for me, or I could even completely miss out on the contract.

In other words, protectiveness for a favorite language may be a way of
self-conservation of one's own effort and energy.