From: Peter Hickman <peter@...>
Date: 2008-02-13T19:00:48+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby, Perl, Python

J. Cooper wrote:
> As a new programmer (still in school), I'm curious as to the world of
> scripting languages and their roles. I am learning Ruby (played a bit
> with Rails a year ago, but more recently have been using it for my own
> scripting projects), but I have zero experience with Perl and Python,
> which seem to be pretty household names and thus I feel out of the loop.
>
> I guess what I'm asking is: assuming I become a proficient Rubyist, is
> there a reason to learn Perl or Python (beyond someone handing me a pile
> of code in one of those languages and telling me to maintain it)?
>
> Thanks,
> J
>   

It's always a good idea to learn other languages if only so that you can 
better judge when other people mouth off (good or bad) about another 
language. There is 'opinion' and there is 'informed opinion' and it is 
good to be able to tell the two apart. As for Perl or Python. To be 
honest they are, along with Ruby, similar in many ways. I do my web 
stuff in Perl and games in Python (the pygame package is a god send in 
this respect). So what sort of projects do you have in mind?

It shouldn't take long to get a passing knowledge of either if you have 
some projects to work on.

However if you don't already know then you should consider C, C++ or 
Java. Again just so that you can hold an informed opinion about the 
relative merits, strengths and weaknesses of these languages. Dynamic 
languages like Ruby can spoil you, a fact that you might not appreciate 
unless you have worked in the old school languages. It wouldn't hurt 
your CV to have some knowledge of C, C++ or Java either.