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I quite hoped to be reading an in-depth comparison, but this article merely scratches the surface. What I would like to see from an in-depth article is actual c

by nudded 17y ago

I quite hoped to be reading an in-depth comparison, but this article merely scratches the surface. What I would like to see from an in-depth article is actual code implementing stuff, showing the features a language has (and comparing them with each other). I don't think this is a good article nor a useful one.

Torn 17y ago
+1, the article is a 10-minute gloss at best and has virtually no content or analysis. I mean come on, just look at the 'conclusion': These languages are interchangeable, especially for building web application. Neither are more awesome. They get the job done and they make programmers happy.
- davidw 17y ago
  Having used both professionally, I think that's a pretty good conclusion, actually.
  - Xichekolas 17y ago
    I'd agree with the conclusion, but I'd also agree with nudded - the article is nearly free of useful content. Listing popular libraries of each language does not a comparison make.
  - Torn 17y ago
    It's a fair (and quite reasonable) conclusion but the article in no way supports it.
  - tetha 17y ago
    In fact, Python and Ruby both are very high level, multiparadigm (oop, procedural, functional, ...) dynamic languages and the difference between them is pretty small. One is a bit more perlish, and one is focussing on a clear, deterministic syntax. Thus, I think the conclusion easily generalizes. As one wise man once said: Wether you prefer Python or Ruby depends mostly on which one you met first.
- roder 17y ago
  The conclusion isn't wrong, but the content is weak for the evaluation. At this point in the Ruby VS Python conversation, my expectations for an evaluation are benchmarks of code that is algorithmically identical. If one language provides for a better algorithm than the other, I'd like to see those differences as well.
- didip 17y ago
  It is intended to be a gloss over of functionality that I use frequently. If I want to write much more in-depth comparison then I would have written these (which I may in the future, these kind of blog post takes time to write): * Beautiful Soup vs Nokogiri/HPricot * Fabric vs Vlad * Paste vs Mongrel performance using proxy pass behind Nginx * (I am not going to write Rails vs Django)
gaius 17y ago
Also he's rather overlooked that the web is a tiny corner of the Python world. Ruby has nothing that's even close to NumPy/SciPy.
- didip 17y ago
  Poster here, I intentionally downplay what Python has to offer. It is true that Python has greater breath than Ruby in terms of communities, especially outside web world. If I started to mention those, it will make Ruby looks less capable (or I would naturally skew the article biased towards Python).
  - jrockway 17y ago
    Why is this downmodded to -2? "intentionally downplay" is a bad choice of words, sure, but I think he means "am only comparing web stuff". Most web developers do not care about SciPy. Most research scientists don't care about web frameworks. (Edit: and this is downmodded too? Did Programming Reddit change their color scheme again?)
    - didip 17y ago
      Thank you for clarifying, I am indeed only comparing web development tools.
    - ubernostrum 17y ago
      Well, I downmodded that comment because I took it as the author saying he'd deliberately left out information so as to support the conclusion he wanted to reach. Which is both dishonest and at odds with the stated goal of an "in-depth" look at the languages.
      - didip 17y ago
        You seemed to be missing the word slightly in the blog title =)
  - carbon8 17y ago
DocSavage 17y ago
The PLEAC codebase was new to me. It reminds me of the idiomatic python reference (http://python.net/~goodger/projects/pycon/2007/idiomatic/handout.html http://python.net/~goodger/projects/pycon/2007/idiomatic/han...) I've found very useful, but haven't delved into PLEAC to see if the coding examples are truly idiomatic. Python > http://pleac.sourceforge.net/pleac_python/index.html http://pleac.sourceforge.net/pleac_python/index.html Ruby > http://pleac.sourceforge.net/pleac_ruby/index.html http://pleac.sourceforge.net/pleac_ruby/index.html Coverage varies depending on the language.

by nudded 17y ago

Torn 17y ago

+1, the article is a 10-minute gloss at best and has virtually no content or analysis. I mean come on, just look at the 'conclusion': These languages are interchangeable, especially for building web application. Neither are more awesome. They get the job done and they make programmers happy.

davidw 17y ago
Having used both professionally, I think that's a pretty good conclusion, actually.
- Xichekolas 17y ago
  I'd agree with the conclusion, but I'd also agree with nudded - the article is nearly free of useful content. Listing popular libraries of each language does not a comparison make.
- Torn 17y ago
  It's a fair (and quite reasonable) conclusion but the article in no way supports it.
- tetha 17y ago
  In fact, Python and Ruby both are very high level, multiparadigm (oop, procedural, functional, ...) dynamic languages and the difference between them is pretty small. One is a bit more perlish, and one is focussing on a clear, deterministic syntax. Thus, I think the conclusion easily generalizes. As one wise man once said: Wether you prefer Python or Ruby depends mostly on which one you met first.
roder 17y ago
The conclusion isn't wrong, but the content is weak for the evaluation. At this point in the Ruby VS Python conversation, my expectations for an evaluation are benchmarks of code that is algorithmically identical. If one language provides for a better algorithm than the other, I'd like to see those differences as well.
didip 17y ago
It is intended to be a gloss over of functionality that I use frequently. If I want to write much more in-depth comparison then I would have written these (which I may in the future, these kind of blog post takes time to write): * Beautiful Soup vs Nokogiri/HPricot * Fabric vs Vlad * Paste vs Mongrel performance using proxy pass behind Nginx * (I am not going to write Rails vs Django)

gaius 17y ago

Also he's rather overlooked that the web is a tiny corner of the Python world. Ruby has nothing that's even close to NumPy/SciPy.

didip 17y ago
Poster here, I intentionally downplay what Python has to offer. It is true that Python has greater breath than Ruby in terms of communities, especially outside web world. If I started to mention those, it will make Ruby looks less capable (or I would naturally skew the article biased towards Python).
- jrockway 17y ago
  Why is this downmodded to -2? "intentionally downplay" is a bad choice of words, sure, but I think he means "am only comparing web stuff". Most web developers do not care about SciPy. Most research scientists don't care about web frameworks. (Edit: and this is downmodded too? Did Programming Reddit change their color scheme again?)
  - didip 17y ago
    Thank you for clarifying, I am indeed only comparing web development tools.
  - ubernostrum 17y ago
    Well, I downmodded that comment because I took it as the author saying he'd deliberately left out information so as to support the conclusion he wanted to reach. Which is both dishonest and at odds with the stated goal of an "in-depth" look at the languages.
    - didip 17y ago
      You seemed to be missing the word slightly in the blog title =)
- carbon8 17y ago

DocSavage 17y ago

The PLEAC codebase was new to me. It reminds me of the idiomatic python reference (http://python.net/~goodger/projects/pycon/2007/idiomatic/handout.html http://python.net/~goodger/projects/pycon/2007/idiomatic/han...) I've found very useful, but haven't delved into PLEAC to see if the coding examples are truly idiomatic. Python > http://pleac.sourceforge.net/pleac_python/index.html http://pleac.sourceforge.net/pleac_python/index.html Ruby > http://pleac.sourceforge.net/pleac_ruby/index.html http://pleac.sourceforge.net/pleac_ruby/index.html Coverage varies depending on the language.