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I think it has to do with the crowd each language tends to attract. One of the big draws for Python is NumPy and SciPy, so Python tends to attract more of the

I think it has to do with the crowd each language tends to attract. One of the big draws for Python is NumPy and SciPy, so Python tends to attract more of the scientific/statistical community. They're more concerned about data and analysis than aesthetics. Rails unarguably attracted a vast number of web designers (many trend-oriented, but the point stands) to Ruby by offering a low-impact way to learn some server-side dev. As a result, many of the people who write Ruby (especially on the web) are more design-oriented -- so they trend towards better aesthetics. This is not a question of capability, nor of libraries, but of community. The almost-tragic part of this article is that it overlooks the fact that the design differences in the pages it links are implemented neither in python nor in ruby, but in HTML and CSS.

csense 13y ago
> Rails unarguably attracted a vast number of web designers Why? > low-impact way to learn some server-side dev Ruby is not low-impact. There's this myth that Ruby is lightweight, easy to read, and simple to get into. I seriously question if any of the people who perpetuate this myth have ever actually attempted to program Ruby. Ruby source code is incredibly ugly and difficult to read. There is so much "magic" going on that it is difficult to begin to even understand what the code is supposed to do [1]. Ruby's syntax is incredibly aggravating. I've found it damn near impossible to understand even trivial programs without consulting the manual every three or four tokens. Worse, the language is ambiguous: is that colon a symbol, or a dictionary mapping, or a ternary operator? And this is leaving out that Ruby == Rails to a huge extent, so much of the documentation and examples that are out there are burdened by the further complexity of a large web application framework. I've found Ruby so obtuse and unnatural that every time I've tried to learn it, I've quickly become so aggravated at the language's awful syntax and strange abstractions that I simply give up. If Ruby's warts are bad enough to make someone with my programming-heavy background desert it before making much headway, why did "Rails unarguably attract...a vast number of web designers"? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5872899 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5872899
- NateDad 13y ago
  Wow. I just read that link. That's.... amazing. I've always thought ruby looked inscrutable, but I figured it was just that I hadn't taken the time to bone up on the syntax.... but no, it really is amazingly bad. Thank you for preventing future me from wasting time trying to learn it.

csense 13y ago

> Rails unarguably attracted a vast number of web designers Why? > low-impact way to learn some server-side dev Ruby is not low-impact. There's this myth that Ruby is lightweight, easy to read, and simple to get into. I seriously question if any of the people who perpetuate this myth have ever actually attempted to program Ruby. Ruby source code is incredibly ugly and difficult to read. There is so much "magic" going on that it is difficult to begin to even understand what the code is supposed to do [1]. Ruby's syntax is incredibly aggravating. I've found it damn near impossible to understand even trivial programs without consulting the manual every three or four tokens. Worse, the language is ambiguous: is that colon a symbol, or a dictionary mapping, or a ternary operator? And this is leaving out that Ruby == Rails to a huge extent, so much of the documentation and examples that are out there are burdened by the further complexity of a large web application framework. I've found Ruby so obtuse and unnatural that every time I've tried to learn it, I've quickly become so aggravated at the language's awful syntax and strange abstractions that I simply give up. If Ruby's warts are bad enough to make someone with my programming-heavy background desert it before making much headway, why did "Rails unarguably attract...a vast number of web designers"? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5872899 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5872899

NateDad 13y ago
Wow. I just read that link. That's.... amazing. I've always thought ruby looked inscrutable, but I figured it was just that I hadn't taken the time to bone up on the syntax.... but no, it really is amazingly bad. Thank you for preventing future me from wasting time trying to learn it.