[Tutor] Help deciding between python and ruby

[kevin parks]

Well, the only thing more annoying than off topic discussion is "meta"  
discussion on lists and folks passing judgement on other people's  
posts (ie. you should have x, your should not have Y... I shouldn't  
have this second doughnut, but you know what, i am gonna eat that  
*and* have a second cup of coffee). So i'll resist the temptation to  
reply to Luke in detail, who i did not realize was a moderator here.

In any case, I happen to have right in front of me, a brandy new  
spendy (in Korea anyway) copy of the Lutz book Learning Python 3rd  
Edition O'Reilly and if you look at "Part I Getting Started," the book  
begins with a very compelling section called "Why People Use Python"  
and it outlines:

Software quality
Development productivity
Program Portability
Support libraries
Component integration
Enjoyment

and the end of this chapter, pp. 18-19 has a section called: "How does  
python stack up to language x" which gives a bunch of comparisons to  
Ruby and others. Here he says:

[Python] is more mature and has a more readable syntax than Ruby.  
Unlike Ruby and Java, OOP is an option in Python — Python does not  
impose OOP on users or projects which might not apply.

Most of this has already been touched on in this thread ... But I  
would add that that very past point is a HUGE reason why i use python.  
For little pea-shooter scripts I don't want to have to know and apply  
advanced OOP concepts. Yet if you do know them and your project  
requires it... it is there. One of the criticism of Python by Ruby  
users is that it isn't as "purely OO" as Ruby is. It is up to you  
whether that is a bug or a feature. But you can go quite far in Python  
without being an OOP guru but i am not sure that is entirely true of  
Ruby. Check with Ruby users. Personally i don't want to have to know  
how to do Schenkerian analysis and set theory just to have my first  
piano lesson and play Mary had a little Lamb, and i don't want to  
learn Norwegian just to hear a Norwegian folk tale. I like to dig  
right in and Python is good for that for sure.

-k




On Sep 6, 2009, at 5:45 AM, Luke Paireepinart wrote:

>
> ruby on the other is more 'implicit,' used more in web-apps (via  
> ROR), emphasizes code-readability/beauty, and is more flexible (i.e.  
> has more than one way of doing something).
> You mean people actually like ruby's syntax?  I think Python's the  
> prettiest language I've worked with syntactically.
> I wouldn't call having multiple ways to do something "flexible".  I  
> agree more with Python's philosophy, there should be one (and  
> preferably only one) obvious way to do something.
>
> @kevin parks:
> > I am (and i am sure i will be over-ruled and shouted down for  
> this), not entirely sure the tutor list
> > is the appropriate place for this query. Places like  
> comp.lang.python better serve this purpose.
> This is a good point, you probably should have stopped there.
>
> Yes, this is probably not the best place for this discussion.  I  
> would like to see how it pans out, though, now that we're already 15  
> posts in.  It's not very difficult to ignore a thread in your  
> favorite e-mail client, perhaps you could just do that?  If these  
> debates become commonplace I will probably help you yell at everyone  
> to stop flooding the list, but the amount of such questions has  
> always been quite low and never bothersome, and I've been on Tutor  
> since 2005.
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