5 ms·
Ruby would be Neo-Paganism - A mixture of different languages and ideas that was beaten together into something that might be identified as a language. Its adhe
by swombat 16y ago
Ruby would be Neo-Paganism - A mixture of different languages and ideas that was beaten together into something that might be identified as a language. Its adherents are growing fast, and although most people look at them suspiciously, they are mostly well-meaning people with no intention of harming anyone.
Python would be Humanism: It's simple, unrestrictive, and all you need to follow it is common sense. Many of the followers claim to feel relieved from all the burden imposed by other languages, and that they have rediscovered the joy of programming. There are some who say that it is a form of pseudo-code.
Clearly the author is a python programmer. Otherwise these two statements would have been reversed (i.e. Ruby is simple, unrestrictive, joyful, and Python is neo-paganism).
- philwelch 16y agoPlus, it's strange to categorize "humanism" as a religion, as well as categorizing "Wicca" and "neo-paganism" as completely different religions. Characterizing Lisp as Zen Buddhism seems odd, though the given rationale makes sense; to my understanding, Zen Buddhism seems to entail contemplating questions that don't have logical answers and getting beaten with a stick for answering incorrectly, and while there are many programming languages like that, I don't get the impression that Lisp is one :)
- sigzero 16y agoHumanism is quite often tagged a religion. The "god" is simply man. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#Legal_mentions_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#Legal_mentions...
- grav1tas 16y agoI was curious where the 'pythonic' coding style played into being unrestrictive when it comes to how everybody writes in that language.
- nickpinkston 16y agoYea, I agree the guy is pro-Python. Looking at it from a cultural perspective though, I think the article is dead on. Python people seem more straight-forward/pragmatic with less awe for "magic" than Rubyists. Ruby does seem to be more spiritual (pagan) - with more easy-going syntax.
- dkarl 16y agoYes -- Python is a non-religion because it is great for people who don't care about programming for itself but who have to do programming in their work. You will not find many Rubyists who say, "Gee, I don't mind programming, but I can't relate to people who feel fulfilled by writing beautiful code. I don't understand much about this language but what I understand seems to be enough to read and write code and get my work done." For them, the "joy of Python" is simply the absence of various forms of pain caused by the need to be overly intellectually involved with something tangential to their work. It's like the joy of waking up on Sunday morning and going off to do something you really want to do instead of going to a cathedral and sitting bored surrounded by people who are transported by the beautiful stained glass, hymns, communion with God, and everything else you don't care about. P.S. Every time I say this about Python, somebody points out that decorators have enabled complicated metaprogramming in Python and now you are as likely to be surprised and befuddled in Python as in any other language, but I think (hope) that that is only true if you're using certain web application frameworks.
- donaq 16y agoA mixture of different languages and ideas that was beaten together into something that might be identified as a language. Its adherents are growing fast, and although most people look at them suspiciously, they are mostly well-meaning people with no intention of harming anyone. You might be right about Ruby being simple, unrestrictive and joyful (qualities I also found in Python when I was learning it), but I don't see how you could say that the above is true about Python. Anyway, in a follow up post, the author does claim that he is no python fanboy.