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Languages look similar, but Python value resides in the vast amount of libraries available to do data processing and ML. Most of them backed by C implementation

Languages look similar, but Python value resides in the vast amount of libraries available to do data processing and ML. Most of them backed by C implementations under the hood.

Grimm1 5y ago
Exactly, and though Ruby has an FFI (Foreign Function Interface) similar libraries were not created and Ruby was pigeon holed as a language you build CRUD apps in.
- rmetzler 5y ago
  There is a dev adding Ruby bindings via FFI to ML libs. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be a large community (yet). I don't do any ML and don't know much about it, but the Elixir / Phoenix people around José Valim now build ML software (nx, livebook) and I'm excited for this.
cutler 5y ago
There's nothing about Python, compared with Ruby, that gives it any advantage, numerics or otherwise. Ruby's C ffi is just as powerful as Python's. It's all just a first mover phenomenon. Python is the VHS of programming languages.
- luibelgo 5y ago
  Community matters. In this case Python community around data science is huge.
  - cutler 5y ago
    PHP, JS and Python all have great communities but they're still crappy languages.
pjmlp 5y ago
And those libraries can actually be used from any language with FFI capabilities. So whatever headstart Python might have in machine learning, it is only a matter of time until all major languages support the same C, C++ and Fortran libraries. The only things holding it, are having anyone that cares enough to write those bindings, and the culture of which languages are accepted when submiting papers.