Skipping Python for Ruby
Posted by matijs 18/01/2007 at 18h59
Well, ruby just isn’t that much better than python. If I’m going to
relearn everything, why would I bother with ruby? Why not just jump
straight to lisp?
I can really appreciate this argument, since it resonates with my reasons
for not learning Python: I knew Perl, and was doing most of my programming
in it, making nicely structured, readable, object-oriented programs. To me,
Python didn’t seem like such a big step forward: It’s like a Perl with
enforced readability.
And then came Ruby.
My introduction to Ruby was not through Rails, but through reading the
online version of the Pickaxe Book. After reading the first chapter, I was
sold. Here was a language that truly embraced object-orientation, and gave
access to all kinds of interesting abstractions that I had only vaguely
heard of (such as coroutines). There also was a pleasant lack of
boilerplate.
So to me, Ruby is that much better than Perl, whereas Python is not. I
wouldn’t know if I agree that Ruby is not that much better than Python, but
at least I can understand the argument. Ruby is certainly no Lisp, although
it comes close.
So what’s next? Lisp’s features certainly look appealing, giving basically
the pinnacle of power of abstraction, in exchange for slightly unappealing
syntax. I believe the syntax can be overcome, so my next language to learn
may well be a Lisp. Which Lisp is still an open question. On the other
hand, there are interesting languages like Erlang, ML and the like.
[Incidentally, Without an e is the creator of
Scarlet Lambda, which
is roughly a web framework written in, or at least used with, a functional
style of programming in Python, with a Lisp-like syntax. Wow.]
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