On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 10:25:14AM -0500, Matthew Sherman wrote:
> Ok folks, we have veered into nonconstructive territory.  How about we
> come back to the original question and help this person figure out
> what they need to about Ruby and Python so they can do well with what
> they want to work on. 

comparing languages on objective criterias (especially when they are as
close as ruby and python) isn't constructive.

but ok, let's try

* both claim to be very easy to learn (ruby by having a very nice
  syntax, python by limitating the features from the syntax)
* writing python code is very boring when you come from featured.
  langages like ruby or perl. nothing can be expressed a simple way.
* ruby is slow ... i mean: even for a dynamic language.
* both langages have libs for libraries for libraries but lack
  something as robust and usefull as CPAN (and related tools) 
* python has an equivalent of the perl PDL (scipy) 
* python has Natural Language Toolkit (equivalent in other langages ?)

your basic goal       |  your langage 
-------------------------------------
write/maintain faster | perl 
reuse existing faster | python 
learn          faster | ruby 
execute        faster | you're probably screwed.
                        experiment lua, go, haskell, rust 

regards
-- 
Marc Chantreux
Université de Strasbourg, Direction Informatique
14 Rue René Descartes,
67084  STRASBOURG CEDEX
☎: 03.68.85.57.40
http://unistra.fr
"Don't believe everything you read on the Internet"
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