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I think a big reason why it comes up so often is that it's rarely worth the mental real-estate to become proficient in both since they are so similar in design

I think a big reason why it comes up so often is that it's rarely worth the mental real-estate to become proficient in both since they are so similar in design and problem domain. There is significant diminished utility in learning python after knowing ruby or vice versa. You're better of learning something totally different (like haskell!) since you already have a flexible modern scripting language with a great web-framework in your toolkit. However since each language has its trade offs, people have to keep convincing themselves (loudly and publicly, usually) that they made the right decision. So basically, it's contentious and will always be that way for the same reasons that people still debate vim vs emacs after twenty years.

pmiller2 17y ago
This right here is the exact reason that I, as a fairly experienced and hopefully pretty good Python programmer feel absolutely no desire to learn Ruby. It doesn't offer me anything in terms of making me think differently about programming than Python, and I don't see any particular domain (other than, of course, Rails) where it offers an advantage in libraries or anything. On the other hand, had I stumbled upon Ruby first and then found out about Python, I'm sure I probably wouldn't feel any need to learn Python, either.
silentbicycle 17y ago
I think you're absolutely right, here. Once you know one, you'll probably have much better returns from time spent learning a very different language (such as Erlang, OCaml, or C) than learning the other, barring exceptional circumstances.