From: Peter Hickman Date: 2001-07-26T07:19:15+09:00 Subject: [ruby-talk:18553] Re: Ruby as opposed to Python? "Mark Nenadov" wrote in message news:20010722.174044.1820388464.11017@d150-169-166.home.cgocable.net... > The "comparison with other languages" states that "Ruby is "often faster > than Python". Is this documented anywhere? Could someone provide me with > some specific examples where Ruby would be faster than Python? If Ruby > was drastically faster than Python, that may be a good "selling point" in > my eyes. As a Perl programmer by trade I must say that Perl is powerful when it is used where it is strong. But for the life of me I still get a headache trying to write OO Perl. With Ruby it is a breeze, with Python it was ok. Had I not picked up the Pickaxe book because I was just a language junkie I would be still doing all my private projects in Python. Ruby is "faster than Python" for me in terms of development, faster and surer to throw together some OO, fast to get the code working - it seems to take a few more iterations to get Python code down, more so that Perl even! With short turnarounds and continual code modification then Perl and Ruby are great. > 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? Speed of development and redevelopment is crucial. It is why Perl stomped all over C/C++ when it came to Web development. Speed of execution is not an issue except for the sort of people that can afford the hardware to moot the issue. For me Python was Perl designed by a computer scientist rather than a hacker (sorry Larry but the Perl syntax reeks of cheap parser design). Perl mark 2 if you would. Ruby on the other hand was a new language which included features that Perl had such as text processing that made it so useful. It is not unusual that there are more Smalltalk people here than anywhere outside of a Smalltalk NG. Ruby does OO well and Smalltalk programmers are rather fussy about their OO, to me it is a sign that it has been done right. Now if we could design something to get the Lisp people on board...