From: Brad Tilley Date: 2007-01-20T01:21:23+09:00 Subject: Re: Ruby and Python, questions (not a flamewar!) Quoting r : > Seems like the language barrier puts about a 5-10 year lag on it. Historically, software has been a product of the Western cultures. The English language has greatly influenced every programming language. Everything seems to originate from the C programming language (Python, Ruby, etc.) and extend from there. C and Unix are a western concepts. I find Ruby fascinating simply because it was written by a non-western culture. IMO, languages (natural languages not programming languages) influence the way we think, form ideas and solve problems as human beings. We can examine many programming languages designed by western software designers and clearly see the western way of problem solving, but unfortunately, there are not very many popular programming languages designed by other cultures. Ruby is one example of this and is very refreshing. I do not find Ruby to be inherently noble or the ultimate programming language, it's only different. And IMO, different is good because it allows us to see and frame issues from a different vantage point. In the end, we all benefit from this.