Ruby has closures, Python does not.  Not getting into the "who's better" 
argument; just citing a fact.

On Saturday 22 March 2003 06:48 am, Greg McIntyre wrote:
> Jim Weirich <jweirich / one.net> wrote:
> > Thanks Paul.  Sometimes its easy for those of us who are very familiar
> > with Ruby to neglect features of a language we are less familiar with.
>
> Yes, this was the case. I do not want to propagate misinformation.
>
> > It sounds to me as if the original poster is looking for a "slam dunk"
> > for Ruby (compared to Python), and I'm not sure he's going to find
> > one.
>
> Well, in my defense, it wasn't me who was looking for such a thing. I'm
> a much more subtle person. ;) My lecterer wanted a "slam dunk" and was
> perhaps using a straw-man tactic to argue Python's equivalence. What I
> want are a few benefits Ruby has in practice over Python. Not
> necessarily technical capabilities (which are usually obscure) but
> features which are frequently taken advantage of by its programmers
> where the equivalent Python is not impossible, but significantly more
> difficult.
>
> > Ruby and Python have far more in common than they have
> > differences. What differences there are more more differences in
> > preferences than real differences in language power.
>
> They are very similar but since researching the differences I've found
> that there are significant differences in common practice adopted by
> Ruby and Python programmers. Ruby's learning curve is decidedly easier,
> for example, due he POLS and its small, powerful and reasonably
> consistent standard library which owes a lot to Ruby's more pure
> O-O-ness. Ruby blocks also lend themselves to so many useful things,
> and are used so extensively in Ruby, I think it's very significant.
>
> That is, in terms of what the languages *can* do, they're almost exactly
> the same. In terms of the nature of the code frequently written in each
> language, they're quite different.

-- 
Seth Kurtzberg
M. I. S. Corp.
480-661-1849
seth / cql.com