> My impression is that in the ‘00s, Python and Ruby were both relatively new, dynamically typed, “English-like” languages. And for a while these languages had

> My impression is that in the ‘00s, Python and Ruby were both relatively new, dynamically typed, “English-like” languages. And for a while these languages had similar popularity. Your impression is false. In the 00s, Python was a slowly growing language that had a few niches that it was extremely popular in. Meanwhile Ruby (well, Rails in particular) was the Next Big Thing and immensely popular, especially for new Web Applications. What happened is that Rails' schtick got less unique as more MVC frameworks were created for other languages (CakePHP, Laravel, Django, etc) and then Node was released. JavaScript/TypeScript has filled all of the same areas Rails used to and is even more accessible so is the new Next Big Thing. Meanwhile, Python just continued steadily growing and a few of it's niches have become very important to businesses (Data Science) and the tech sphere, in general (Machine Learning); exponentially increasing it's uptake. So, while RoR is still very popular in web shops, it's more common to be seen in legacy codebases (3-5+years or older) and less so in newer ones (where Node/Deno has taken it's place). Python, on the other hand, is very popular in two very greenfield spheres that are continuing to grow fast.