In article <slrncv33jq.id8.me / serpentor.cobrala>,
Preston Crawford  <me / REMOVESPAMBLOCKprestoncrawford.com> wrote:
>On 2005-01-21, Gennady Bystritksy <gfb / tonesoft.com> wrote:
>Of course. I wasn't expecting all the answers. And believe me, I Googled 
>this topic to death. The problem is, that it always seems to end up in...
>
>"Python is more mature"
>"Ruby is more fun"
>"Python has more libraries"
> 
>..etc etc
>
>I'm coming at this as someone who really likes the look of Ruby and I 
>guess I'm trying to find out if investing time in learning it (aside from 
>just what you gain from learning the language) is worth it in terms of 
>things you can actually do with it and how easily they can be done. I know 
>that's a little vague, but I meant it to be vague, mostly, minus the last 
>part.

Deciding between the two seems to come down to preferences.  If you don't 
prefer whitespace as syntax then you'll probably prefer Ruby.  If you 
think that whitespace as syntax is the coolest thing since sliced bread 
then you'll probably prefer Python.  But the whitespace issue is only the 
first one you'll encounter.

I suggest you actually write some code in each language and then decide.  
A project that would take a day or two.
Perhaps you could take a stab at one of the Ruby Quizes?


>
>> P.S. Your post is very generic and smells like a troll (I beg your 
>> pardon if it is not), so do not expect a lot of responces here, people 
>> are just tired.
>
>Understood. It's definitely not a troll, though. No offense take. I 
>understand how these things go (especially after Googling). If you reread 
>my last part of my post, that should tell you that I'm 100% serious about 
>hearing about how Ruby is being used out in the real world and what Ruby 
>developers think of its chances. By that I mean that any time one learns a 
>language there's obviously an investment in time if you want to get 
>something out of it. Since I don't know Python, nor Ruby, but have 
>leanings towards Ruby, my question was born out of sincere interest to 
>know what some of you thought its future held, in particular as a language 
>to develop desktop applications that need to be developed quickly. It 
>looks to me like both Python and Ruby have a bright future, not just as 
>web languages, but also in the afforementioned capacity, as languages to 
>do RAD work where you don't want to use VB or you want to move away from 
>VB or VC++. That's my primary interest and thus the reason I asked what 
>you all thought of its future in that regard.

One can only speculate about the future.  Ruby's future does seem bright 
at this point, but I'd still hesitate to make predicitons.  The future 
depends a lot on what new things Ruby-newbies will do with the language 
as they master it.

Phil