New to Python: Do we have the concept of Hash in Python?

[A.M]

"Sion Arrowsmith" <siona at chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote in message 
news:eYk*yxbir at news.chiark.greenend.org.uk...
> gregarican <greg.kujawa at gmail.com> wrote:
>>I came from using Ruby about a year or so [ ... ]
>
> That's an interesting way round. Why did you consider Python if
> you already knew Ruby, and which is now your preferred language?
> (I've no interest in learning Ruby, but from what I've seen of it
> I similarly can't imagine what would motivate me to learn Python.)
>
> -- 
> \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

My decision wasn't based on which language I am most comfortable with. I can 
do the same application in Java in one hour. We are looking for a scripting 
language to use across our organization. This is a strategic decision. Out 
1st choice is Python, the second one is Perl and the last one is Ruby. 
Yesterday I proof that Python is way to go.



The programming language aspects of Ruby is a brilliant, but the language 
itself is not everything. I encountered some problem with Ruby and I found 
it is not there yet. Here is some of problems I have with ruby: (consider 
the fact that it is my personal opinion)



1)      Ruby community feel that there is strong database access support. I 
personally didn't find DBI distribution and documentation very organized and 
at the production level. For example, DBI:OCI8 is at experimental state. 
http://www.jiubao.org/ruby-oci8/ Oracle data access support is very 
important for me and DBI:OCI8 is the only way you can get data from Oracle 
stored procedures.

2)      Komodo (my favorite scripting IDE) crashes when I debug certain type 
of Ruby scripts. Moreover there is no ActiveRuby from ActiveState **yet**.

3)      You can find lots of excellent Python books from OREILLY. You don't 
have much option for Ruby **yet**.

4)      Ruby became famous because of Rails. Rails is a great idea, but I am 
so focused on ASP.NET and J2EE and I am going to stay there. Rails doesn't 
have a production level support for IIS. So I am not very interested in 
Rails.



In essence, Ruby language is the best, but Ruby platform is too young for 
me. I'll give Ruby another two years and come back to it again.



I found the Python language quite powerful and easy. With mature and strong 
community support.