[ruby-talk:18417] Re: Ruby as opposed to Python?

"Bryn & Anshu" <[e-mail]> wrote:

> DISCLAIMER: I am not a zealot. I like a lot of languages, Python and Ruby
among
> them.
>
> That said, there seem to me to be a number of people on this newsgroup who
are
> comparing Ruby against outdated versions of Python. This can be amusing,
but is
> not very helpful. Python's been going through a growth spurt recently and
has
> rectified (or begun rectifying) its most serious shortcomings. Here's a
list of
> some of the things people have mentioned:

[...Many good points snipped....]

> I'm not trying to provoke anyone, just to point out that Ruby's
> technical/cleanliness 'lead' on Python is a lot shorter than most people
here
> seem to think. I hope this can lead to honest understanding, rather than
> straw-man arguments.

Thanks for reminding people of these things; indeed that might be a good
thing to do every few months or so, since Python is now a pretty rapidly
moving target and your list is bound to get much longer. I think appearances
of unfair comparisons by several incautious Ruby proponents has stirred up a
significant number of negative comments on comp.lang.python and /. that
otherwise probably wouldn't have appeared.

IMO, the notion that Ruby could catch up with Python in the next few years
is an unfortunate case of wishful thinking and an unfortunate misguided
diversion of attention away from the real competition. For the past couple
of years, Python seems to have been undergoing the same sort of rapid
quasi-exponential growth that Perl did when it really began to catch on
years ago. If Ruby is extremely fortunate enough to match the same
phenomenal growth trajectory despite the handicap of a later takeoff, Ruby
still wouldn't surpass Python for many, many years. But that would still be
an extraordinary success for Ruby. Meanwhile, Python is making tremendous
progress promoting the important business public relations case that there
is a viable, reliable, and industrial strength OO/scripting alternative to
Perl and Java.  Some (hopefully increasingly sizable) fraction of the people
who initially look into Python are also likely to subsequently take up Ruby
for various stylistic and technical reasons.

IMO, the bottom line is that Python should be regarded as a rapidly rising
friend that is inadvertently increasingly helping our cause, and that it
behooves us all to treat it scrupulously fairly.

Conrad