From: David Alan Black <dblack@...>
Date: 2001-10-30T22:35:47+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:23840] Re: Ruby and Python: a fuzzy question

Hello --

On Fri, 26 Oct 2001, Dave Thomas wrote:

>
> I want to start out with a statement: this is not a message about
> which language is better. Instead, I'm trying to clarify some vague
> thought I have by seeing if anyone else can explain it :)
>
> For me personally, Ruby and Python have different characters. It isn't
> that one is better that the other in any absolute sense: they just
> feel different when I use them. From talking with folks, this seems to
> be a common experience.
>
> So, here's my question. As Paul Prescod has said, Ruby and Python are
> fairly similar in many significant ways. Despite this, I personally
> have never managed to get excited about Python, but liked Ruby so much
> I wrote a book about it. Other folks have the opposite experience,
> loving Python and not finding much to thrill them about Ruby. Why is
> that? Is it some kind of personality clash between the language and
> the programmer? Is it liking what you're used to? Is it liking or
> disliking the philosophies of the languages' designers? Or is it
> something else?
>
> I have some very vague idea of what it might be (at least as far as
> I'm concerned), but I'd like to see what people think before posting
> it.


I think there's also an element of time or history (personal or
otherwise) involved.  For me, the pickaxe came along at a point where
I was at a bit of a crossroads with regard to Perl: still interested
in the language, but bored with the newsgroup noise and, while
understanding where it came from, finding the endless attacking of
people who didn't get this or that about the language quite
unpleasant.  And a bit too much "cult of personality", at times, for
my taste.

So for me, Ruby has offered a kind of clear vista, as it were.  How
much of this has to do with the coolness factor, it's hard to say.  I
have a lot more admiration of Perl than some Ruby programmers seem to
:-) so I guess it's possible that if the languages had happened in the
opposite order, the effects of my situation would have overridden
language-specific issues.

Then again, I do think Ruby is *really* cool :-)


David

-- 
David Alan Black
home: dblack@candle.superlink.net
work: blackdav@shu.edu
Web:  http://pirate.shu.edu/~blackdav