What's better about Ruby than Python?

[Roy Smith]

Juha Autero <Juha.Autero at iki.fi> wrote:

> Alex Martelli <aleax at aleax.it> writes:
> 
> > The counter-arguments you present in the following do not affect Mertz's
> > argument in the least, and thus cannot indicate why you don't find it
> > completely compelling.  To rephrase David's argument: simplicity suggests
> > that a 'class' statement should always have the same fundamental semantics.
> > Since it SOMETIMES needs to bind a name, therefore, letting it ALWAYS
> > bind a name -- rather than sometimes yes, sometimes no, depending on
> > context -- is the only Pythonic approach.
> 
> I think the problem here is same as with understanding Python
> variables and assignment. People think names as objects themself
> rather than bindings to an object. (Maybe I should have said "things"
> to avoid confusin. Though in Python, everything you can bind a name to
> is a Python object.) They think that after
> 
> class foo: pass
> 
> you get 
> 
> +-----+
> | foo |
> +-----+
> 
> but in Python in reality you get 
>         +-----+
> foo --> |     |
>         +-----+
> 
> So, in Python all objects are basically anonymous. They just have
> names bound to them. And since everything is an object, this goes for
> classes and functions, too. I'm not sure about modules though.

Well, classes (and modules) are not really anonymous.  A class knows 
it's name (as does a module).

>>> class foo: pass
... 
>>> print foo
__main__.foo
>>> bar = foo
>>> print bar
__main__.foo
>>> 

so, a more accurate picture would be
        +-----+
foo --> | foo |
        +-----+