Python vs Ruby

[Sion Arrowsmith]

bruno modulix  <onurb at xiludom.gro> wrote:
>> "Casey Hawthorne" <caseyhHAMMER_TIME at istar.ca> wrote in message 
>> news:02efl19c4n4994vtlt2ubrs7ulg4mcm8ug at 4ax.com...
>>>I have heard, but have not been able to verify that if a program is
>>>about
>>>10,000 lines in C++
>>>it is about
>>>5,000 lines in Java
>>>and it is about
>>>3,000 lines in Python (Ruby to?)
>
>For a whole lot of common tasks (like file IO etc), the Java/Python loc
>ratio is between 5/1 and 10/1. Also, not having the dumbest type system
>in the world, Python is naturally much more generic than Java, which
>saves a lot of boilerplate code. I think that the real numbers would be
>much like 5000 lines in Java -> 1000 lines in Python - and probably 5000
>-> 500 in some cases.

I have here a library (it's the client side of a client-server
interface including a pile of class definitions) which has
implementations in pure C++, Java and Python, taking about 3000,
3500 and 1500 loc respectively. And there's an associated module
(with no C++ implementation) that I remember being particular
"impressed" while writing it to find being 3 times as long in Java
as Python despite (a) extensive (and pretty much common) Javadoc/
docstrings and (b) implementing in the Python version a feature
present in the standard Java library (scheduling a thread to run
at specified intervals and time out). Strip the Javadoc/docstrings
out and it's about at that 5:1 ratio.

As for Ruby, looking at some of the comparisons given elsewhere
in this thread, my intuition is that it would be more loc than
Python due to all the explicit end s.

-- 
\S -- siona at chiark.greenend.org.uk -- http://www.chaos.org.uk/~sion/
  ___  |  "Frankly I have no feelings towards penguins one way or the other"
  \X/  |    -- Arthur C. Clarke
   her nu becomeþ se bera eadward ofdun hlæddre heafdes bæce bump bump bump