From: Phlip <phlip_cpp@...>
Date: 2004-10-21T08:34:17+09:00
Subject: Re: Python vs. Ruby (Re: A concise description of Ruby?)

Jamis Buck wrote:

> I, for one, dislike Python for various reasons. However, both Python and
> Ruby exist, and are both successful, because they fit different people's
> ways of thinking about the world. Ruby fits my way of thinking. Python
> doesn't. For a Python fan, it is doubtless the other way around.
>
> I don't think there is anything wrong with that. I don't think Ruby is
> out to displace Python. In fact, I don't think it ever could, just
> because there are lots of people for whom Python is a better fit than
> Ruby is. That's not blasphemy, just honest talk. ;)

Python and Ruby are so closely similar they will cause a great amount of
friction and sibling rivalry.

I worked with Python exclusively for 2 years. (Don't swoon with delight at
the idea of not working with Java for 2 entire years, folks. A dime of
profit from the venture would have been nice! But t'wasn't Python killed
that beast.) I at least earned the right to decree that Ruby always has and
always will beat Python.

Regardless of how much effort Python's implementers may spend catching up,
detail by detail Ruby got its language definition right. Python started with
the "indent to declare structure" model; this pushed down the idea of real
blocks with block closures. Ruby started with block closures, and these
provided cognitive efficiencies that have propelled the language's syntax,
semantics, and culture far beyond Python.

-- 
  Phlip
  http://industrialxp.org/community/bin/view/Main/TestFirstUserInterfaces