Not intending to start a language flame war/holy war here, but in the
library coding community, is there a particular reason to use Ruby over
Python or vice-versa? I am personally comfortable with Python, but I have
noticed that there is a big Ruby following in Code4Lib and similar
communities. Am I going to be able to contribute and work better with the
community if I use Ruby rather than Python?

I am 100% aware that there is no objective way to answer which of the two
languages is the best. I am interested in the much more narrow question of
which will work better for library-related scripting projects in terms of
the following factors:

-existing modules that I can re-use that are related to libraries (MARC
tools, XML/RDF tools, modules released by major vendors, etc)
-availability of help from others in the community
-interest/ability of others to re-use my code

Thanks.

Josh Welker
Information Technology Librarian
James C. Kirkpatrick Library
University of Central Missouri
Warrensburg, MO 64093
JCKL 2260
660.543.8022