From: "Sean O'Dell" <sean@...[REMOVE_THE_SPAM]>
Date: 2003-08-20T02:04:13+09:00
Subject: Re: Why did you switch from Python to Ruby?

I may not be the best qualified to answer this, because I looked at 
Python, scowled, and ran before I got to do any serious programming, but 
I have an interesting question you can ask yourself:

How many posts can you find on Google/Groups (Usenet) from people 
stating they used to program in Ruby and switched to something else?

I would wager you will find zero.  This isn't just pro-Ruby FUD, either, 
I have a point to make.  Everyone has a reason for plugging their 
favorite language, and you will find arguments for every programming 
language on the face of the earth, even the worst of the worst.  So, 
perhaps instead of basing your decision on the presentation of what 
people have to say (who may not have the charisma to convince you and 
you will run off with the wrong language), try looking around and 
finding who left what languages for what reasons and weigh that information.

My point here is, I have yet to hear of a single person who left Ruby 
for another scripting language.

I'm sure people have left Ruby for certain pragmatic reasons ("my job 
requires me to write in Perl" or "Ruby just isn't as fast as assembly"), 
but I have trouble imagining even one person leaving Ruby because it 
wasn't a good enough script language for them.  You can find people who 
never tried it, or tried it for a day and missed their old language 
Perl/Python/Bash/Basic so much they had to go back, but I doubt you can 
find any Ruby-expatriates among the group of people who have given it a 
solid try.

Go Google for people who left Ruby and count them and enumerate their 
reasons, if any.  Ponder that for awhile.

	Sean O'Dell

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?
> 
> Motive for my question: I am language / platform shopping and comparing the
> pros and cons of Python, C#, and anything that comes up on the radar in the
> course of it.  A lot of people who know about Python seem to know about
> Ruby.  Someone in comp.lang.python suggested that I should ask this
> particular question here to get more complete opinions.  The c.l.p people
> are mostly happy with Python and see few if any advantages to Ruby, although
> there is some discussion and dissention.
>