Confessions of a Python fanboy

r rt8396 at gmail.com
Wed Jul 29 23:06:33 EDT 2009


Hello fellow Pythonista's it's nice to be back after such a long
hiatus. I have recently realized my  blind love affair with Python was
just that. I must admit there are better ways to program. Like your
first lay, your first programing language can leave an indelible mark
on you, but like all young chaps, the passion for programming has
sweep me away into vast new orgies of programming bliss. (ig ,little
head guides the big one.)

My adventures in Ruby.
an autobyography by rt8396

After breaking free from the wild love affair i had with Python, a new
day had dawned. I dried my eyes and soon discovered the Ruby language
(not by choice however) --now don't worry fellow Pythonistas, i am
still on your side (mostly)  -- but i now realize Ruby has some good
things going for it. For instance...

1.) No need to use "()" to call a function with no arguments.
Python --> "obj.m2().m3()" --ugly
  Ruby --> "obj.m1.m2.m3"  -- sweeet!
Man, i must admit i really like this, and your code will look so much
cleaner.

2.) the .each method
container.each{|localVar| block}
This method can really cleanup some ugly for loops, although i really
like the readability of for loops.

3.) true OOP
Now before you go and get all "huffy" over this statement, hear me
out. Python is the best language in the world. But it damn sure has
some warts! "len(this)" instead of "obj.length" max(that) instead of
[1,2,3,4,5].max(). You know what i am talking about here people. We
all get complacent and It seems easier to just cope with these
problems instead of fighting for change. But look at the French,  WHAT
THE HELL HAS THAT DONE FOR THEM, *NOTHING*!!!!

As for the rest of Ruby, i am not impressed. The redundant usage of
"end" over indention perplexes me. The Perlish feel of "require" and
the horrifically cryptic idioms of Ruby regular expressions. The
"puts" and "gets" seem childish and the math class does not even have
a degrees or radians function!

Anyway, i thought i would get this off my chest and catch up with old
friends in the meantime. We can all make Python the perfect language
it needs to be, but it ain't gonna be easy!
Thank you all

PS stay tuned for more from this series....





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