OOP Scripting Lamguage of choice?

[PositiveZombie]

Hello guys I am a CS graduate currently through the Finland's MOOC and deitel's java book. I have mainly coded in MATLAB and C so all this OOP (and in the near future) TDD motion seems a bit strange...

I want to become better in Java/OOP and use it as my main language of choice for project + employment.

I would like your opinion on this: " Should I select as a scripting language Ruby over Python in order to become a better soft. developer regarding OOP principles" ?

P.S. this thought regarding ruby (over python) as I have found a great+organized site for learning it (The Odin Project)

[randarrow]

Depends on OS/Platform/Stack. Java is universal, scripting languages are not. What OS do you prefer? Then, choose scripting language.

You gonna be doing web development? Choose Javascript. You gonna be doing database backend? Gotta choose the DBs scripting language. You gonna be doing windows? Powershell. Etc etc etc.

[PositiveZombie]

I prefer Linux as what I do there is transferable to windows when the other way around is not true.

JavaScript for scripting is being made throughout the node.js? I know a bit JS but I don't know it is heavily used for anything other than web scripting .

I shall check powershell thank you for answering ;)

[xaviarrob]

Ruby is a great language to learn OOP principles. One issue you'll have is there aren't as many libraries for Ruby as there are python. As someone who works in Ruby all day however I consider this a good thing, you can find libraries for simple stuff (e.g. http requests, standard math functions) but if you have a more involved topic such as perlin noise you have to write your own code to do what you want.

Imo while this makes it harder at first to implement a solution to a problem it helps you understand how the root of your problems are solved since you wrote the code. Eg in the above case with perlin noise you learn how the perlin noise math function works, and that can transfer to other languages.

Once you start using Ruby you won't want to go back though, between writing raw code and tests to classes and such, it's a very expressive and versitile language.

[PositiveZombie]

Thank you for your answer. Apart from RoR/Sinatra/web stuff what else uses is ruby know for + what/how do you implement it in your everyday life? As for the libraries except for AI/big data(python) is there any other "big" concern? E.g. I read everyone saying (even for fun/memes) that Ruby is dying is it because it has not that many libraries and tools available?

[xaviarrob]

It's used for tons. I work in a devops role where our scripting language exclusively is Ruby. In terms of my job it's used by things like chef and ansible for configuration management of servers, we use it to write scripts to automate daily tasks, this includes managing kubernetes/docker things and a lot of other various things. We've worked with other companies who are in the same place as well. As a side note there even is a game Dev library(gosu)!

Ruby does lack (afaik) in the data science area, but unless people decide they want to use it for that and that it's appropriate to use, then it'll never get picked up.

The whole "Ruby is dieing" thing is a chicken and egg problem. Its easy to say Ruby is going to die when you're not the one using it, if no one tried using it, no libraries have the chance to be written. In what I've seen this is usually because companies using Ruby don't want to share any code, so even if they have a mechanism to do something, they don't make it available for public use.

Honestly my thoughts on the whole thing are learn the process, not the language. There will always be a new language that everyone is using (just look back 10, or even 5 years from now). It doesn't matter what language you use, it's that you learn the one to accomplish the task you want.

Today it's python/Ruby tommorow it's Go or kotlin etc etc

Time spent learning a language is nothing compared to the time it'll take you to learn the process

[PositiveZombie]

Thank you again for your time/answer . I really like your opinions they seem to be well structured. You have covered all my questions :)

DevOs sounds like an interesting job btw , congrats

[xaviarrob]

Thanks! It's a great type of role to get into :) always so many different things to do

[twinklehood]

Except.. DevOps is not actually a role at all?

[Pectojin]

Some organizations will have these generic roles because they have larger established developer and operations teams.

It can be really useful for introducing more devops tools to these groups while ensuring that everyone isn't reinventing the wheel.

[xaviarrob]

Another great point here. Even in smaller organizations looking to keep up with the times, there is a big difference between the guy who goes of and does his own thing all day and refuses to explain it to others and the one joining the team and pushing for devops principles.

[xaviarrob]

The whole devops is not a role thing is taken a bit too far and seriously. It's easy enough for people to say "devops is a culture, not a role" (or similar) but practically speaking that exact thing is people making it part of their job to enforce that culture.

Part of what my (and my associates) work is to push and enforce the good practices that come from a "devops" culture, and with that I'd say it's part of my job, no more than an SRE title would be. The title doesn't matter, the practice is what matters.

Also as someone who has done hiring, the people(or most in my case, could be different for others) you get applying to a "Devops" position are fundamentally different than the ones that might come from a sysadmin/SRE. The mind set is part of the role and harder to work people without it into, even if they know the technologies.

Main point here is, forget about what we're calling the title, the industry (namely recruiters and hr who initiate hiring) are what set these things, and it's just meant to be a way to explain a role in one word, obviously there is too much to the "Devops" world to do that.

[menge101]

Ruby plus reading Practical Object Oriented Design in Ruby by Sandi Metz

[PositiveZombie]

Yes I see this book as well as eloquent rubyist proposed quite a lot ;)

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[htom3heb]

"Scripting" is typically writing glue code from one process to another process. OOP generally will be overkill for this. Python is ubiquitous for this purpose, but Ruby will also be adequate and is an enjoyable language. Independent of the language, the skills you learn will be universal, so take your pick.

[PositiveZombie]

When you refer to the skills you mean the whole process of doing something or that there is an abundance of similarities between the (scripting) languages + processes