5 ms·

>>> In my current job I write Python, which I really don't like very much and I get burned out on Python-specific things. I've used Ruby for several years, and

by jerzyt 6y ago

>>> In my current job I write Python, which I really don't like very much and I get burned out on Python-specific things. I've used Ruby for several years, and I love the language. I wish I could use it today, in my daily stack, but unfortunately, Python won in the marketplace. Syntactically, Ruby and Python are pretty much equivalent, with Ruby appealing more to me. However, Python won - no arguments. Got to go with the winner.

cutler 6y ago
I've been stuck on the horns of this dilemma for a while, at least for choice of a scripting language. Ruby and Python adoption is pretty similar if you're working in web devlopment rather than data science. In London the number of Rails and Django jobs is fairly equal. Agree, though, Python is racing adhead of Ruby in general and that makes me sad.
- apotheon 6y ago
  From what I've seen, specifically-Ruby jobs tend to pay more than specifically-Python jobs (and more than specifically-Java jobs, for that matter), and while Rails and Django seem kinda balanced in some areas, in others Rails beats the tar out of Django for startup market share.
  - cutler 6y ago
    I don't know about that. Search angel.co and you'll find 36 hits for Ruby on Rails/London and 50 for Django/London. Same ratio on Indeed.co.uk/London.
    - apotheon 6y ago
      There's an iceberg of Ruby jobs that don't exist in the most obvious places to search, and because other languages have gained more spotlight (including anything that even smells of ECMAScript) there are fewer people searching for Rails jobs so the number of Rails jobs is pretty well matched to the number of job-seeking Rails devs. Also, early stage startups tend to hire from people they know, not from job search sites. Finally, there are many "full stack" jobs where work on the backend means Rails. A simplistic metric like "job listings on angel.co" (especially if you're specifically looking for Rails in the job posting title) don't tell the whole story.
apotheon 6y ago
That doesn't make any sense. Use the right tool for the job. If "the winner" was all that mattered, we'd all be using Java now, and it would remain the top language forever, as long as it makes any sense at all to use -- not even requiring it to make more sense than other options.
- afiori 6y ago
  Technological progress often evolves as a Scale Free Network[1] where the nodes with most present activities are likely to see the highest investment. It is less of a problem for mature ecosystem and tools, but being in the "not winner" position will likely induce negative effects in the long term technological progress. (I am sure there are many counterexamples) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale-free_network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale-free_network
  - apotheon 6y ago
    If we assume, basically, that only The Winner Language should ever be used, we either end up with a long-term glut on technology churn (e.g. JavaScript's miserable state of instability right now, but for everything and not just JavaScript) or rapid development of novel forms of mediocrity (Java), and nobody should ever bother with Python, in which case the previous commentary still makes no sense because Python isn't "The Winner". Sufficient investment for significant ongoing value is a matter of a threshold relevant to the particular needs served by the target technology, not of rank. As long as there's "enough" interest, it will have as much likelihood of stable or increasing value for (appropriately targeted) users as anything else. Meanwhile, too much investment from too-big interested parties can ruin something pretty thoroughly. Things are not as straightforwardly popularity-contest-driven as you seem to suggest.
    - afiori 6y ago
      > Things are not as straightforwardly popularity-contest-driven as you seem to suggest. Popularity contests are not simple. Programming is an huge field comprising many unsyncronized industries and fields. Each of them can have its own winner (or winners) and they interact in complex ways. How is beyond the point. My claim is that having the most mindshare/resources is the simplest way to keep having the most mindshare/resources. Few technologies rely only o this to stay alive, but a relevant factor is that differently than many other (often technical) advantages this one has a positive feedback loop. Coming back to the original topic, this might mean that even if you invest a lot in the "best" tool to solve your problems it is possible that the lack of ecosystem around it (due to other people choosing "worse" tools for the same problems) makes it a losing investment. Of course things are not linear and even the best interpolations have only intervals of validity, yet general long-term trends and cycles exist. If you want you can add a rate of decay to the weight of nodes in the model, but the point remain: resource distribution is typically not fair in any a priori sense; often it simply scale with the already available resources. Example: Bitcoin is the among biggest cryptocoins mostly because it was the biggest at some point.

by jerzyt 6y ago

cutler 6y ago

I've been stuck on the horns of this dilemma for a while, at least for choice of a scripting language. Ruby and Python adoption is pretty similar if you're working in web devlopment rather than data science. In London the number of Rails and Django jobs is fairly equal. Agree, though, Python is racing adhead of Ruby in general and that makes me sad.

apotheon 6y ago
From what I've seen, specifically-Ruby jobs tend to pay more than specifically-Python jobs (and more than specifically-Java jobs, for that matter), and while Rails and Django seem kinda balanced in some areas, in others Rails beats the tar out of Django for startup market share.
- cutler 6y ago
  I don't know about that. Search angel.co and you'll find 36 hits for Ruby on Rails/London and 50 for Django/London. Same ratio on Indeed.co.uk/London.
  - apotheon 6y ago
    There's an iceberg of Ruby jobs that don't exist in the most obvious places to search, and because other languages have gained more spotlight (including anything that even smells of ECMAScript) there are fewer people searching for Rails jobs so the number of Rails jobs is pretty well matched to the number of job-seeking Rails devs. Also, early stage startups tend to hire from people they know, not from job search sites. Finally, there are many "full stack" jobs where work on the backend means Rails. A simplistic metric like "job listings on angel.co" (especially if you're specifically looking for Rails in the job posting title) don't tell the whole story.

apotheon 6y ago

That doesn't make any sense. Use the right tool for the job. If "the winner" was all that mattered, we'd all be using Java now, and it would remain the top language forever, as long as it makes any sense at all to use -- not even requiring it to make more sense than other options.

afiori 6y ago
Technological progress often evolves as a Scale Free Network[1] where the nodes with most present activities are likely to see the highest investment. It is less of a problem for mature ecosystem and tools, but being in the "not winner" position will likely induce negative effects in the long term technological progress. (I am sure there are many counterexamples) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale-free_network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale-free_network
- apotheon 6y ago
  If we assume, basically, that only The Winner Language should ever be used, we either end up with a long-term glut on technology churn (e.g. JavaScript's miserable state of instability right now, but for everything and not just JavaScript) or rapid development of novel forms of mediocrity (Java), and nobody should ever bother with Python, in which case the previous commentary still makes no sense because Python isn't "The Winner". Sufficient investment for significant ongoing value is a matter of a threshold relevant to the particular needs served by the target technology, not of rank. As long as there's "enough" interest, it will have as much likelihood of stable or increasing value for (appropriately targeted) users as anything else. Meanwhile, too much investment from too-big interested parties can ruin something pretty thoroughly. Things are not as straightforwardly popularity-contest-driven as you seem to suggest.
  - afiori 6y ago
    > Things are not as straightforwardly popularity-contest-driven as you seem to suggest. Popularity contests are not simple. Programming is an huge field comprising many unsyncronized industries and fields. Each of them can have its own winner (or winners) and they interact in complex ways. How is beyond the point. My claim is that having the most mindshare/resources is the simplest way to keep having the most mindshare/resources. Few technologies rely only o this to stay alive, but a relevant factor is that differently than many other (often technical) advantages this one has a positive feedback loop. Coming back to the original topic, this might mean that even if you invest a lot in the "best" tool to solve your problems it is possible that the lack of ecosystem around it (due to other people choosing "worse" tools for the same problems) makes it a losing investment. Of course things are not linear and even the best interpolations have only intervals of validity, yet general long-term trends and cycles exist. If you want you can add a rate of decay to the weight of nodes in the model, but the point remain: resource distribution is typically not fair in any a priori sense; often it simply scale with the already available resources. Example: Bitcoin is the among biggest cryptocoins mostly because it was the biggest at some point.