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Readability, 100%. I have programmed in large projects in both Python and Ruby. Ruby is very productive to write, because everything and the kitchen sink is at

Readability, 100%. I have programmed in large projects in both Python and Ruby. Ruby is very productive to write, because everything and the kitchen sink is at your fingertips at all times. But because of Ruby's many ways to skin a cat, everyone's code is very different. Add to that the penchant for domain-specific sub-languages in Ruby: new syntaxes that you might have to learn half a dozen of to integrate a large project, all of which end up being more limiting than if you could just, you know, write Ruby. Contrast with Python, which goes so far at normalizing as to have a language-wide coding standard in PEP8. Python has its problems, package management and distribution is still ugly for example. But I can read any project I find and understand it without loads of context.

civilized 5y ago
My impression is that Perl, Ruby, and Lisp all suffer from this issue. Even proponents will say things like "this language is so expressive, I feel so productive in it, but people do such idiosyncratic and clever things that it's hard for anyone else but the author to understand". That sort of "solo rockstar" programming culture doesn't really lend itself to large-scale FOSS projects, which need to be inviting to wide participation.
jrochkind1 5y ago
I am totally interested in hearing opinions from people who have done serious hours of programming in both ruby and python, as to readabilty comparison. If it's just people who have done a lot of work in ruby and little in python saying ruby is more readable, and vice versa, I don't find it very useful even anecdotally.
- pwnna 5y ago
  As someone that have spent a lot of time in both Ruby and Python (and specifically a lot of hours in the Python scientific compute stack), I would say that Python is significantly more readable. Python is also significantly easier to teach as opposed to Ruby, especially if the target audience already has a bit of programming experience (from MATLAB, or other courses). I suspect the main reasons are: 1. Python's guiding philosophy of "There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it". With later additions to the language, this is getting less true (3 different ways to format strings, asyncio, type hinting, etc). Some libraries also don't conform to this (matplotlib). That said, it's a lot better than the Ruby code I've encountered, which is like the wild west. 2. Python's syntax is reasonably simple to teach. The object model could be condensed into something very simple if you don't need a lot. With very basic knowledge, you can go a long way. Ruby's a bit more chaotic with things like inheritance, extend, and include; proc, block, lambda; having to use attr_accessor; syntax things like a = b could be a function call or not; if/unless; and many more things that are confusing. 3. Even basic things like loops in Ruby is not idiomatic as it wants to apply a function/block instead. Beginners, especially those with a bit of background, like their loops better than functional programming. As I've spent many years working on Ruby code base I still get lost all the time. Python in my experience has been a lot better, although recent Python versions have regressed a bit as it introduced more syntax to do the same things.
- auntienomen 5y ago
  I've done both, in particular learning large codebases, and vastly prefer reading Python. Ruby code is too verbose; it reads like Java.
pwnna 5y ago
A language like Ruby can be very productive for someone who has climbed the learning curve to learn all its ins and outs. However, in my experience, this turns into a large productivity drain the moment someone else (who is less of an expert) has to touch it. For large projects with multiple developers, readability should win over writability every time, most code are read more than they are written (my hypothesis). You can see evidence of this, given the success of languages like Python and Go. That said, for scientific compute, in a lot of cases, writability matters way more, as your job as a scientist is to produce results as fast as possible, code quality be damned. However, only a small number of scientists are expert developers and have climb the learning curve and can write code with ease. The vast majority of them are junior at best, and Python's approachability (which is rooted from its readability of course), wins. With most of the people using Python, the ecosystem develops and there are no other viable alternatives. In the long run, I suspect even languages like MATLAB and Mathematica will die out as the open source stack becomes more mature and (eventually, if not already) significantly more capable. Julia might be a wildcard due to its (potential) performance advantages, but the aesthetics of the programming language is simply not in the minds of 99% of the scientific compute users out there.

civilized 5y ago

My impression is that Perl, Ruby, and Lisp all suffer from this issue. Even proponents will say things like "this language is so expressive, I feel so productive in it, but people do such idiosyncratic and clever things that it's hard for anyone else but the author to understand". That sort of "solo rockstar" programming culture doesn't really lend itself to large-scale FOSS projects, which need to be inviting to wide participation.

jrochkind1 5y ago

I am totally interested in hearing opinions from people who have done serious hours of programming in both ruby and python, as to readabilty comparison. If it's just people who have done a lot of work in ruby and little in python saying ruby is more readable, and vice versa, I don't find it very useful even anecdotally.

pwnna 5y ago
As someone that have spent a lot of time in both Ruby and Python (and specifically a lot of hours in the Python scientific compute stack), I would say that Python is significantly more readable. Python is also significantly easier to teach as opposed to Ruby, especially if the target audience already has a bit of programming experience (from MATLAB, or other courses). I suspect the main reasons are: 1. Python's guiding philosophy of "There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it". With later additions to the language, this is getting less true (3 different ways to format strings, asyncio, type hinting, etc). Some libraries also don't conform to this (matplotlib). That said, it's a lot better than the Ruby code I've encountered, which is like the wild west. 2. Python's syntax is reasonably simple to teach. The object model could be condensed into something very simple if you don't need a lot. With very basic knowledge, you can go a long way. Ruby's a bit more chaotic with things like inheritance, extend, and include; proc, block, lambda; having to use attr_accessor; syntax things like a = b could be a function call or not; if/unless; and many more things that are confusing. 3. Even basic things like loops in Ruby is not idiomatic as it wants to apply a function/block instead. Beginners, especially those with a bit of background, like their loops better than functional programming. As I've spent many years working on Ruby code base I still get lost all the time. Python in my experience has been a lot better, although recent Python versions have regressed a bit as it introduced more syntax to do the same things.
auntienomen 5y ago
I've done both, in particular learning large codebases, and vastly prefer reading Python. Ruby code is too verbose; it reads like Java.

pwnna 5y ago

A language like Ruby can be very productive for someone who has climbed the learning curve to learn all its ins and outs. However, in my experience, this turns into a large productivity drain the moment someone else (who is less of an expert) has to touch it. For large projects with multiple developers, readability should win over writability every time, most code are read more than they are written (my hypothesis). You can see evidence of this, given the success of languages like Python and Go. That said, for scientific compute, in a lot of cases, writability matters way more, as your job as a scientist is to produce results as fast as possible, code quality be damned. However, only a small number of scientists are expert developers and have climb the learning curve and can write code with ease. The vast majority of them are junior at best, and Python's approachability (which is rooted from its readability of course), wins. With most of the people using Python, the ecosystem develops and there are no other viable alternatives. In the long run, I suspect even languages like MATLAB and Mathematica will die out as the open source stack becomes more mature and (eventually, if not already) significantly more capable. Julia might be a wildcard due to its (potential) performance advantages, but the aesthetics of the programming language is simply not in the minds of 99% of the scientific compute users out there.