From: r <johnsyntax@...>
Date: 2007-01-19T03:15:05+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby and Python, questions (not a flamewar!)

Drew Olson wrote:
> I can only hope that ruby
> will begin to rival Python in the "mainstream" (whatever this means).

I think the battleground is web apps.   Right now you can leverage all
the RoR content that's directed at J2EE programmers,  but you can't
hope to win a war of ideology yourself.   The platform chosen seems to
determine what problems will be solved,  from there you can Do The
Simplest Thing That Could Possibly Work,  but it's not clear to me that
the choice of platform is anything more than an ideological struggle
where decisions are made,  prior to the application of say Agile or
Design Heuristics, that determine all the problems in advance.

It would be nice if Do The Simplest Thing That Could Possibly Work,  or
a normal conversation about what we can agree on,  determined that Ruby
should be the language.

Maybe it would sound like:   Look,  Python has this weird indented
syntax and a bolted-on object model that creates an interest gap for
Java programmers.   PHP is simply an unacceptable mess to Java
programmers.  On the other hand there is definite interest in Ruby from
Java and dotNet programmers,  due to 1) the base language Ruby actually
able to do something useful by itself,  2) RoR and  3) the basically
unacceptably complex and expensive definitions those popular compiled
languages with their do-nothing syntax have for The Web App.

-r