From: Lyle Johnson <lyle@...>
Date: 2003-08-19T23:03:50+09:00
Subject: Re: Why did you switch from Python to Ruby?

Brandon J. Van Every wrote:

> This question is only meant to apply to people who used to use Python, but
> switched to Ruby.  Why did you do so?

I will assume that you'll get answers from other readers of 
comp.lang.ruby about the merits of Ruby versus Python, and I'd probably 
second most of those comments, so I won't rehash them here.

I was probably vaguely aware of Ruby for some time, but decided to take 
a serious look at it when the Pragmatic Programmers (Dave Thomas and 
Andy Hunt) started writing articles, and eventually a book, about 
programming with Ruby. Like a lot of software developers, I was already 
a big fan of their first book (The Pragmatic Programmer) and so their 
endorsement of Ruby was significant to me, enough so to invest some time 
in learning more about it.

That alone, however, would not have been enough. As I've noted 
elsewhere, if you just pit Ruby and Python against each other in a 
"feature list shootout", it's probably a tie.

The thing that *really* sold me, and something that a lot of long-time 
Ruby users probably take for granted, is the open and generally helpful 
spirit of the Ruby community. When you ask a question here, you're as 
likely as not to get an answer from Matz (the "father of Ruby"), or many 
of the other resident experts in the language. We generally don't flame 
newbies, or people who ask questions like "Why did you switch from 
Python to Ruby"? The support community behind a programming language (or 
I guess any other activity) is something that I think you can't ignore, 
although it's easy to do so ;)

Anyways, that's my $0.02.

-- Lyle