From: Josef 'Jupp' SCHUGT Date: 2004-02-03T08:30:41+09:00 Subject: Re: Python 25 times as popular as Ruby !? Hi! * Dan Doel: > After all, Ruby isn't a religion, Sounds like the most important difference between Ruby and Perl. > and it isn't in a contest with other languages. There is an historical precedence case of what happens if a programming language does not take place in that contest: 'Plankalkuel' (plan calculus) by Konrad Zuse. Konrad Zuse built the first mechanical computer worked, the first relay computer and the first cathode tube computer. No programming language did exist jet so he invented a programming language of his own that had many traits of a modern programming language. Most people (including most Germans) don't even know that this programming language did exist. This is because it never took part in the contest. Zuse lived in the Third Reich and because of this had no chance to present Plankalkuel to a wider audience. Ruby itself shows this problem of communicating as well: The time during which all documentation was in Japanese de facto meant that very few people outside Japan even knew that it existed. Anyway. I do not think that a factor of 25 is *that* much. One should not underestimate positive feedback. The more people use Ruby the more learn about it the more start to use it. Josef 'Jupp' SCHUGT -- http://oss.erdfunkstelle.de/ruby/ - German comp.lang.ruby-FAQ http://rubyforge.org/users/jupp/ - Ruby projects at Rubyforge -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Germany 2004: To boldly spy where no GESTAPO / STASI has spied before