From: MikkelFJ Date: 2001-07-24T03:27:08+09:00 Subject: [ruby-talk:18367] Re: Ruby as opposed to Python? "Mark Nenadov" wrote in message news:20010722.174044.1820388464.11017@d150-169-166.home.cgocable.net... > In the interview with the Programming Ruby authors, they say "Ruby will > overtake Python within four years". On what basis do you supose they make > this claim? What is the most obvious driving force that they feel will > cause this change? I guess this is difficult to put in words. It is a kind of spiritual thing. I've been searching for a scripting language for a long time, without bothering to spend a lot of time learning or looking - it had to work out of the box so to speak. I've looked at Perl several times - too complex to be helpful. I've briefly read articles on Python - well perhaps one day. The I read the article in DDJ on Ruby, and I was instantly hooked. I've read a lot about other people having similar experiences with Ruby - it just feels right. Having read the article, I realized that I got much more than a scripting language, and I also realized that I had already learned the most important aspects of the language. Essentially, there were no learning curve - that does not mean I know everything, but I can code in Ruby. Without the good online reference material found in "Programming Ruby", I'd probably have dropped the language as being too difficult to learn beyond the basics. As it is, it has passed this second test - i.e. it's for real. The article in DDJ, and the book "Programming Ruby" are two very important success factors for Ruby outside of Japan. I still do no consider the language mature for professional deployment in many scenarious where I would have liked to use it. If you want to do that, you need to know a lot about the Ruby C interface (which is good by comparison, but it is not Ruby, and it is not the C language binding that makes Ruby attractive). On the other hand, there is a lot of good already implemented bindings to various toolkits. Look at FxRuby, a Ruby binding for the Fox GUI toolkit. In 25K of code (in the sample), you have full blown 3D object editor, running realtime. You get the same toolkit in Python, but you certainly do not get less in Ruby. Ruby has the power of Perl scripting as well. The versatility and ease of use makes Ruby a winner. It's elegance is probably only an added benefit. Or was that why I got hooked in the first place? Mikkel