Carroll, Barry wrote: > Thank you for this post. I was in a discussion of Ruby vs. Python at > lunch today. The consensus was that Python was much better than Ruby in > all ways. Since I know very little about Ruby, I had nothing to add to > the conversation.
Sounds like you had a table full of Pythonistas. I barely know any Ruby but I think there are a few areas where it has advantages over Python. - Ruby blocks are much more powerful than Python lambdas and they are integrated pervasively into the language. They also allow interaction between the block and the container that I don't think you can do in Python, I don't understand it well enough to know. (Maybe the new generator features of Python 2.5 allow something comparable.) - Metaprogramming (modifying classes on the fly) seems to be much easier in Ruby than in Python. Interestingly, in the Ruby community this is considered a powerful feature and used frequently, whereas the Python community tends to think of it as a last resort. - Ruby is very good at creating domain-specific mini-languages. This is a consequence of the easy metaprogramming and optional parentheses on function calls. Take a look at a Ruby on Rails tutorial to see what I mean. Kent _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
