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Is being faster than Python considered to be a notable feature?

• gkbrk 9mo ago
  Python is one the most popular programming languages. Ruby fits into a similar category as Python (high level, interpreted scripting language, very dynamic, has a rich ecosystem with tons of existing code). Being faster than Python makes it more attractive to use, or port Python codebases to.
  • wiseowise 9mo ago
    Nobody cares about Ruby outside of RoR Python is one of the Lingua Franca of scientific, data, and most importantly, ai communities Has much bigger community than Ruby Has much, much better tooling story Has much better gradual typing story Isn’t THAT much slower than Ruby, there are far more attractive targets than Ruby if you care about performance
    • wmoxam 9mo ago
      I found scrooge. Bah, humbug!
    • dismalaf 9mo ago
      > Python is one of the Lingua Franca of scientific, data, and most importantly, ai communities You mean it's the most used frontend for all the C and C++ libraries that are used for scientific computing, data and AI.
      • wiseowise 9mo ago
        Semantics.
        • dismalaf 9mo ago
          Literally all those libraries are usable with Ruby. Libtorch, BLAS, LAPACK, Tensorflow, etc...
          • wiseowise 9mo ago
            And with Java, and with Go, and with Rust, and with pretty much any language offering some form of FFI. But they're used with Python, and good luck convincing your interviewer that it should be used with Ruby.
            • dismalaf 9mo ago
              > convincing your interviewer Some of us don't work for others and just program what we want.
• dismalaf 9mo ago
  Personally I don't care about speed for this category of language. I just bring it up because Python is one of the most used languages, is even slower, yet that's never held against it. Just seems like a lazy way to dismiss Ruby. Yeah, it's not as fast as C, Go, Rust or Java. Everyone knows and raw speed obviously isn't the point of a dynamic scripting language...