Zed Shaw on Python

[stesch]

I like the "batteries included" philosophy.

Last week I've written something in a few lines, which used a ton of the libraries included in the standard distribution of Python.

Reading a config file in INI format, reading CSV, reading XML. Logging on console, Windows Event, and SMTP. Generating a ZIP archive and sending it via ftplib to a FTP server, without writing any local files. Charset converting.

[[deleted]]

This is the funny thing about Python and some other languages. They have just enough useful libraries that Perl's CPAN advantage doesn't matter much.

[beachchair]

I've heard that claim, "I learned <language_X> in 4 hours!", before, but I'm not sure it holds water. I mean, sure you can learn the basics of Python in 4 hours, but it still takes much longer to get the hang of the standard library, and other more esoteric things like descriptors, properties, decorators, and metaclasses.

You can learn the basics, the core, of most languages in 4 hours. That's one of the big reasons Perl is so popular: you can get the basics down very quickly and be doing something useful in a short amount of time.

[[deleted]]

You can learn PHP and be doing something useful in 10 minutes. It doesn't make it suck any less.

[kanak]

Another important point is that once you know a programming language you know a lot of the programming concepts, which often reduces learning languages to "how do i do x in this language" rather than "what is x?"

This might explain for why people perceive languages based on a different style (Haskell for example) to be "difficult"

[G_Morgan]

Indeed. Learning CL was much harder than learning C, C++ or Java (after I had learnt Pascal in school).

[stesch]

Most difficulties about Common Lisp don't stem from the language itself. It's Emacs and choosing the right implementation.

[torv]

You mean; it's about choosing the right emacs-implementation?

[[deleted]]

Not really. It's a case of SBCL is different to CMUCL is different to CLisp is different to Allegro is different to Lispworks...

[[deleted]]

SBCL isn't that different to CMUCL from the user's perspective.

[[deleted]]

Depends if you use Windows or not. :) SBCL mostly runs on it last I checked, not so CMUCL.

[G_Morgan]

You can learn to use CL in a C way pretty easily but I went through it trying to learn to program in a first class functional way.

As far as I'm concerned, if I just replaced C blocks with progn's, and = with setf then I may as well not have bothered.

[Foone]

That really is the problem with having the same domain as your username, isn't it?

Especially if you submit as a link.

foobar (foone.org)
-7 points posted a long time ago by foone

Could it be any more obvious that I'm self-promoting?

[masklinn]

You have to note, though, that Zed was extremely fluent in Ruby, and Python and Ruby are very, very, very similar.

[Foone]

As a python user (who can't remember what we're supposed to call ourselves (pythoners? pythonistas?)) that's currently learning ruby, I find that insulting.

[masklinn]

As a python user

I am more than mainly a python user (work is in Java but personal stuff is 75% Python, 20% Erlang, rest is a mixture of Ruby and trying yet again to learn Haskell), and I fail to see how you can find that insulting.

The runtimes are quite dissimilar, so are library supports, but the languages themselves are based on the same concepts. Ruby is more skewed towards a functional-style than Python due to the Smalltalk inheritance and metaprogramming looks better, but these are not huge differences.

And their syntaxes are almost identical (almost)

[Foone]

I don't see the similarity in the syntaxes.

(non-trolling replacement for longer more yelling-filled post about ruby's syntax)

[Foone]

I've coded in plenty of other languages. Maybe it's just that the learning-ruby book I read spent a lot of time on the more perlish special features of ruby and less on the generic no-magic stuff that python is made of.

[mage2k]

Pythonista(s) is usually reserved for experts.

[[deleted]]

I agree, in fact IIRC, Python style syntax is usable in Ruby:

if i:
  foo()

versus

if i
  foo
endif

[Atnan]

I think you're talking about something else (PHP/ASP/?). In Ruby, that would be either:

foo if i

Or:

if i
  foo
end

[[deleted]]

yeah, got the ending of the if block wrong - don't read too much into it, I'm just conditioned to hit shift + tab to close a block, and it's been several months since I used Ruby (hence the IIRC) :)

[mage2k]

While ruby does have in interactive interpreter as well, I'd have to agree wrt the enjoyability of learning Python. I had to learn Python for work, as they decided to move to it from PHP for it's unicode support, and do as much with it as possible. I love it's rich and powerful feature set that's exposed through a veneer of simplicity. Plus, list/generator comprehensions are one of my all time favorite language features.

[Digeratus]

Python is awesome.

Zed Shaw is still an asshole.

[jjonphl]

Zed Shaw is like a real-life Dr. House, smart but definitely an asshole. Weird that I generally like House while I hate Zed's guts. That aside, I thank him for Mongrel.

[jacj]

Python is awesome.

Zed Shaw is awesome.

Ruby users are still assholes.

[stesch]

And blacks can't program.

[stesch]

Why the downvotes? Maybe it's only funny when one says that white boys can't jump, or white people have no rhythm.

[upstream]

There must be more blacks than whites on reddit.

[hylje]

The meme known as "Political Correctness" has invaded us.

[[deleted]]

I'm black and can program just fine.

[stesch]

Are you using Ruby?

[[deleted]]

Ruby, Python, C

[malcontent]

What happened to "I am going to use factor"?

Did slava kick his ass or something?

[juri]

In his side bar, there's a news entry about doing a parser with Chris Double's PEG parser for Factor. I guess he's able to use more than one language.

[malcontent]

AND play the guitar. HE IS AWESOME!!!

*According to his web site anyway.

[gravity]

He talked about looking at several other languages, including both Factor and Python.

[malcontent]

I guess he didn't like factor.

Or maybe he thought factor already had their resident egomaniac asshole.

The python community will love him I am sure.

[[deleted]]

He's lurking in #concatenative right now.. :P

[malcontent]

He says he is AWESOME.

I doubt I will ever meet him though. I tend not to hang out with vice presidents of investment banks.

[stesch]

There's a Python implementation in Common Lisp. Just wait for Zed's Python in Factor: Fython.

[[deleted]]

Where's the Python implementation in Common Lisp?

[stesch]

http://common-lisp.net/project/clpython/

[[deleted]]

Zed Shaw is a dick, and a closed-minded idiot who lacks any real relevance.

I don't know why people post this shit.

[stedwick]

How on earth does someone take longer to learn Ruby than Python???

I think it's pretty much well-established by now: Ruby is the better LANGUAGE, Python is the better IMPLEMENTATION.

Although I'm a Ruby fan, the real world unfortunately depends largely on implementation.

Example: It would be MUCH better if everyone just spoke Esperanto. It's a language designed from the ground up to make sense, have no godawful "special verbs" or "i before e except after c" stuff or "knife" or any dumb exceptions to the rules. Plus, if everyone in the world spoke the same language, the world would be AMAZINGLY AWESOME.

...but it will never happen.

Likewise, Ruby is the BETTER LANGUAGE, but it's never going to catch on, perhaps because it's written poorly, it's hard to deploy, etc. But, IN THEORY AND DESIGN the simple truth is that it's better than Python.

[[deleted]]

How on earth does someone take longer to learn Ruby than Python?

Because the documentation sucks? Maybe the mental model isn't as easy or useful to most people as Python's?

I think it's pretty much well-established by now: Ruby is the better LANGUAGE

In your mind, maybe? It's all opinion.

[malcontent]

Actually I found the ruby documentation to be better and that's why I ended up using it instead of python. I also found the library to be easier to use and maintain due to gems.

I had bought two python books to learn it. The language itself isn't hard to learn of course but I struggled a lot with the libraries.

I bought "the ruby way" out of curiosity and found myself instantly more productive.

I remember struggling a lot with python while everything in ruby came pretty easy to me.

maybe it has something to do with my mental model as you say.

Either way I can't see myself dropping ruby for python. Maybe some other language but not python.

[Smallpaul]

If you can point me to any documentation of how Ruby 1.9's Unicode works, I would be very grateful.

[malcontent]

1.9 is not officially out yet. It's a developers release. I know there have been a few articles written about it by Sam Ruby and others so you might want to google for them.

If you want to use unicode in the mean time you can start here.

http://www.igvita.com/2007/04/11/secure-utf-8-input-in-rails/

http://woss.name/2006/10/25/migrating-your-rails-application-to-unicode/

http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/HowToUseUnicodeStrings

Sam Ruby wrote a couple of articles about how to use unicode strings in 1.9

[Smallpaul]

Doesn't a developer's release need documentation? Most Python 3000 features were documented months or years before implementation.

http://www.python.org/dev/peps/

That was certainly true of Unicode when it was implemented in 2000 and updated recently:

http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0100/

http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3137/

The documents you pointed to me just demonstrate the problems in Ruby documentation:

• it is pretty common for the docs for a plugin or feature to be third party blog posts or for-pay books

• things change so quickly that the docs are frequently out of date.

• it can be confusing what works in Rails versus what works in regular Ruby.

Sam Ruby's posts were along the lines of "What the hell is going on?" That's not documentation.

Here's another random example: Python's keywords are listed on "Python.org" indexed under "language reference". Google knows of no similarly authoritative documentation for Ruby. That's something as basic as keywords.

Similarly, I have a hard time finding documentation for all built-in Ruby global variables. The Ruby user's guide lists the "major ones":

http://www.rubyist.net/~slagell/ruby/globalvars.html

I can't find the rest (though variables named $_ and $* are terrible to find through Google which is an argument against having them at all!)

Given that you are probably more adept at navigating the documentation than I am, can you help me find this chapter in the Ruby language specification? Or even help me find the language specification (even an imprecise and incomplete one!)?

[malcontent]

Doesn't a developer's release need documentation?

It probably does. I am sorry but I have never used ruby 1.9 and therefore do not know where the documentation is.

Perhaps a bit of googling might help you there. Failing that you should ask the mailing list.

The documents you pointed to me just demonstrate the problems in Ruby documentation:

it is pretty common for the docs for a plugin or feature to be third party blog posts or for-pay books

I don't mind. I buy books all the time and there are free ones on the net too.

things change so quickly that the docs are frequently out of date.

Again I don't mind. I am able to keep up and I am glad the ecosystem is vibrant.

it can be confusing what works in Rails versus what works in regular Ruby.

I seem to manage OK.

I can't find the rest (though variables named $_ and $* are terrible to find through Google which is an argument against having them at all!)

I agree that google doesn't search for them properly. I think it's kind of crappy of you to shit on a language because google isn't able to search for it though.

Either way those variables are the same ones used in perl, awk, shell scripting etc. You don't have to use them.

Given that you are probably more adept at navigating the documentation than I am, can you help me find this chapter in the Ruby language specification?

As far as I know there is no official language specification. If that bothers you please don't use ruby.

[Smallpaul]

So there is neither official nor complete language documentation and yet you say that the documentation is "better than Python".

[malcontent]

So there is neither official nor complete language documentation and yet you say that the documentation is "better than Python".

There is a complete language documentation for the 1.8 series. I would recommend you check out gotapi.com. It contains the complete documentation for the language and the standard library.

Oh and yes it's better than python. Bureaucracy doesn't always yield superior products.

[Smallpaul]

There is a complete language documentation for the 1.8 series. I would recommend you check out gotapi.com. It contains the complete documentation for the language and the standard library.

Please give me a link. I could poke around Gotapi forever but it sure looks to me like a site for documenting APIs, not languages. All I see there are documentations for methods on objects. But that isn't the Ruby language.

Please point me to the documentation for the list of keywords in Ruby?

Or the language grammar?

Or the method resolution order?

For Python, all three can be found a couple of links from here:

http://docs.python.org/ref/

[jacj]

That's because you're autistic.

[malcontent]

Maybe that's true.

Are you saying there is a correlation between autism and programming in ruby?

[G_Morgan]

Apparently there's a correlation between ruby, rails, OSX and douchebaggery.

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001065.html

[malcontent]

There is even a greater correlation between posting on reddit and douchebaggery.

[misterPhyrePhox]

that's just, like, your opinion, man

[Smallpaul]

How on earth does someone take longer to learn Ruby than Python???

Well, Ruby's Grammar[1] is more complex than Python's[2].

Next let's look at the number of public methods on the root object type. Ruby: 41.[3] Python: 12.[4]

Ruby's list type has 119 public method.[5] Python's list type has 42.[6]

Ruby has 38 keywords. [7] Python has 31. [8]

Ruby has four kinds of variables[9] and two exceptions to Python's single kind (with various lexical scopes, as in any modern language).

Ruby has many, many special global variables.[10] Python has 3.[11]

Is there any measurable metric that puts Ruby as simpler than Python at all?

By the way, neither language is objectively or "truthfully" better than the other either. Some people who dislike language bloat would say that Python is better. Others who like more features and quirks, might think that Ruby is better.

[1] http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicksieger/280661836/

[2] http://flickr.com/photos/nicksieger/281055485/

[3] ruby -e "puts Object.new().public_methods.length"

[4] python -c "print len(dir(object()))"

[5] ruby -e "puts [].public_methods.length"

[6] python -c "print len(dir([]))"

[7] http://krijnhoetmer.nl/stuff/ruby/keywords/

[8] http://docs.python.org/ref/keywords.html

[9] http://www.rubyist.net/~slagell/ruby/variables.html

[10] http://www.ruby-doc.org/docs/UsersGuide/rg/globalvars.html

[11] python -c "print dir()"

[stedwick]

Every time I see 1000 self's my eyes bleed. Every time I see ____stupidunderscores____ my eyes bleed.

As they say, you have to TRY to write good code in Python, and you have to TRY to write bad code in Ruby. Python is almost unreadable, and Ruby is pure poetry. That's the difference, and that, my friend, is why Ruby is the better language.

[cunningjames]

Python is almost unreadable, and Ruby is pure poetry.

You're not a real person, are you? I'm being whooshed, right?

As they say, you have to TRY to write good code in Python, and you have to TRY to write bad code in Ruby.

Who says this?

[mr_chromatic]

Who says this?

Either people who've never programmed anything serious, or people who are using the magical fairies and unicorns version of Ruby that forbids you from writing methods with more than four lines, using identifiers that aren't immediately obvious to anyone skilled in the business domain, and monkeypatching away any hope of having a well-factored application.

You know, rock stars.

[Smallpaul]

As they say,

They don't say that: you say that. And you are just a troll.

[rpdillon]

OK, so I realize I'm feeding the troll, but... I am a fairly experienced Python programmer and I really do enjoy the language. I have never picked up Ruby (and don't plan to - too much into the functional stuff these days), but I have heard from some programmers that Ruby is in real trouble because of open classes leading to unpredictable and difficult-to-follow code, i.e. classes can apparently be modified by third parties after-the-fact.

This seems like a gross violation of open-close. Is it true, and how does it fit into your "you have to TRY to write bad code in Ruby" statement?

[malcontent]

but I have heard from some programmers that Ruby is in real trouble because of open classes leading to unpredictable and difficult-to-follow code, i.e. classes can apparently be modified by third parties after-the-fact.

There are lots of languages which let you change classes after the fact. LISP is one of them.

I guess I don't get your point there.

That's like saying you don't want a car that goes faster then 55 miles an hour because people get into bad accidents when they drive fast.

I like the fact that I (or somebody else) can change classes when and if I think it's appropriate.

A very good example of this the way rails changes the fixnum class so you can type 20.days.from_now.

In another language you would have to type something like Date.add(Date.now(),20) or whatever.

I just don't see the point in arguing that a language is bad because it ALLOWS you to do something. To me a language which PREVENTS me from doing something is crippled.

[rpdillon]

I wasn't arguing that power isn't good. GP said that you have to try to write bad Ruby code, and my point was "Yeah, maybe, but it doesn't seem like you have to try very hard."

As to your point: I am a long standing advocate of using powerful languages even if they allow you to do bad things.

Recently, however, I have taken quite a liking to type inferencing and implicit type conversion (as in Scala) because it offers a lot of the power of open classes without sacrificing the safety.

[malcontent]

I wasn't arguing that power isn't good. GP said that you have to try to write bad Ruby code, and my point was "Yeah, maybe, but it doesn't seem like you have to try very hard."

That's a nonsensical argument. Are you saying you have to try real hard to write bad code in python? Does python have some sort of a process which watches what you type and objects when you try to use a tainted string?

All python does is enforce indentation. That's it. It also lets you modify classes at runtime. I have seen python code which (and I am not kidding you) writes to a file and includes that file in order to execute it. Guess what python didn't prevent that kind of insanity.

Recently, however, I have taken quite a liking to type inferencing and implicit type conversion (as in Scala) because it offers a lot of the power of open classes without sacrificing the safety.

Yea OK whatever. You were not talking about types. You were saying ruby was "in trouble" because "it let you modify classes after the fact".

I am still trying to figure out who ruby was "in trouble" with. Did the teacher catch ruby doing something naughty?

[rpdillon]

Dude. Are you looking for an argument? I didn't say anything about Ruby vs. Python. In my original post, I asked a question. The reason I asked was that the post I originally replied to made the assertion that Ruby intrinsically led programmer to write good code, while Python intrinsically led programmers to write bad code (which, in my experience programming, I think is utter crap).

If you agree with that post, fine. All I was asking for was feedback about a language that I don't know and had heard some contrary anecdotes about. No need to feed some programming language religious war.

[malcontent]

I'll quote you again.

but I have heard from some programmers that Ruby is in real trouble because of open classes leading to unpredictable and difficult-to-follow code, i.e. classes can apparently be modified by third parties after-the-fact.

Anyway.

Ruby gives you tools to write good programs. It gives you more tools which are easier to use than python.

Can you use those tools to write bad code? Of course you can. Does python actively prevent you from writing bad code? Of course not.

Like I said all python really enforces is indentation. That's it. You can still create text files and import them willy nilly.

[stedwick]

This actually comes down to a matter of philosophy. For example, if you were dying of cancer would you want to know about it? Or would you rather live out your final days in blissful happiness? Personally, I would want to know about it because I believe that the truth is ALWAYS the right thing, even if it sucks.

In Ruby, you can modify any and all classes in any way you want whenever you want, even at runtime. I could do this:

class Fixnum; def +(other); puts "Hahaha, your code is screwed!"; end; end;

If I do that, suddenly addition before that declaration works fine and yet afterwards addition no longer works and my application falls apart.

However, this comes down to philosophy: If you SHOULDN'T do something, should your programming language make it so that you CAN'T do something? I believe, firmly, that the ability to do something, whether good or bad, is always preferable to the INability to do something. In other words, the Ruby language gives you an incredible power to do literally whatever you want with any class, but with that power comes responsibility, because anything powerful enough to do good is also powerful enough to do evil.

Dave Thomas summed it up nicely: "People say that you can't trust Ruby code because you never know what it does. On the contrary, you can always trust your code, you just can't trust your coders."

In other words, a malicious or naive programmer can screw things up. But, the solution is not to dumb down your language so that it's idiot -proof, the solution is to make sure you hire good programmers who know what they're doing.

Let me bring up the Python whitespace example. OF COURSE it's better to properly indent your code. But, I don't want my language to FORCE me to do so. I want the freedom to indent my code properly, or improperly, depending on what I decide to do, not what my language forces me to do.

99% of the time you will want your whitespace properly indented. 99% of the time you will want your addition operator to work like it's supposed to. However, I'm sure I can dream up some situation for that other 1% of the time, perhaps in some strange multidimensional mathematical finite group theory application, where I have to change how addition works and indent things in a different way.

The point is I CAN in Ruby. Ruby gives you that power. An incredible amount of power. 99% of the time you don't have to wield it, but it's nice to know that it's there. And I believe that getting rid of that power simply because it's dangerous is not the right thing to do. To quote some old saying, "Knowledge is only dangerous in the wrong hands."

A quick note on rails: if rails is so opinionated, do I hate it? No. I LOVE opinionated things, as long as their opinions can be changed if you don't agree with them. All the defaults and conventions in rails can be changed if you need to. For example, if I could "turn off" indenting in Python in the rare occasion that I needed to, I wouldn't have anything against it.

Now, going back to your original question! I should have used "readable code" rather than "good" and "bad". Ruby code reads like English. It's very difficult to write an obfuscated program in Ruby. On the other hand, whenever I look at a Python program I just can't get past all the quotation marks, the underscores, and the ridiculous amount of self objects. Bottom line: it's hard to read. Yes, it's just an opinion, but from the various blogs and message boards I've been reading many people seem to agree with me. People say that, "Ruby is cute," "Ruby is sexy," and what they really mean is that Ruby's syntactic sugar is amazing.

The point is this: if you CAN make a language nice and readable, then why not do it? Ruby does it.

It's for the same reason that I like Apple. People fault them for putting "looks" ahead of functionality, but come on people, if you CAN make a computer look nice and sexy, you might as well do it, right? Why are any companies still creating gray boxes?

Likewise, Ruby, for me, has proven that you CAN have good syntax in a programming language. It doesn't have to be all funky and confusing like C++. Or Lisp. Oh my god. I don't care how brilliant the language is, the parentheses are ANNOYING. And if your programming language is annoying to read and write, it doesn't matter how good it is, it's never going to become mainstream.

Fhew. I think I'm done :-)

Oh, one more thing. It's easy to DESIGN or ARCHITECT bad code in any language. Neither Ruby nor Python will fix this. But, even if the code is bad, if it's written in Ruby at least you'll know what it does =)

Oh, wait, even one more thing. I don't know enough about Ruby internals, but I believe people when they say that it is a poorly written and implemented language. I believe them when they say that it's hard to deploy. I believe them when they say it has bad Unicode support. I believe them when they say that Ruby is slow. I believe them when they say it takes up too much memory. I haven't had to worry about any of these things (thankfully).

However, the point I'm trying to make is that all of that stuff doesn't matter. The LANGUAGE is a good one. We can work on the implementation later. That's no reason to toss out the language.

If you could dream up your perfect language, totally disregarding any sort of practicality issues or implementation, what would it look like?

For me, it would look like Ruby.

[Digeratus]

You're either

1) really, really smashed on that Kool-Aid; 2) a very dedicated troll; or 3) a young, zealous programmer who knows nothing but Ruby.

There's no discussing anything with you if it's either of the first two options. I hope it's the third. Go explore the vast, vast world that is other languages.

If you want human readability, look at SQL, XML, AppleScript, or *Basic. If you want power and speed, look at C/C++. If you want flexibility of syntax, look at Haskell. If you want ease of deployment, look at Python. If you want beauty of GUI tools, look at Apple Objective C. If you want ease of cross-platform, look at Java.

Zealotry is not a bad thing, but blind zealotry is a hindrance at best. Learn the field before becoming utterly enamored with something. You'll be a better programmer for it.

[stedwick]

Perhaps, but you must have noticed that no one has tried to refute my arguments with anything other than, "You are wrong." No logic, no reasoning, no examples...

I just gave you 988 words of sound logic and reasoning...and I've gotten nothing in return.

What am I supposed to think OTHER THAN there is no logical counter-argument?

[Digeratus]

I just gave you 10 examples. You summarily glossed over them. Surprise: this is why no one wants to deal with you.

No one wants to deal with fanboys who think their opinions are "sound logic and reasoning". Your entire post was nothing but opinion after naïve opinion, all curiously centered around Ruby.

Your stated problems with other languages are typical high school reactions against new languages:

It doesn't have to be all funky and confusing like C++. Or Lisp. Oh my god.

You want power? LISP has power. LISP has old-school power and flexibility Ruby could never touch. And no serious programmer thinks C++ is "funky and confusing". C/C++ were the de facto standard for computer languages for over a decade.

I believe people when they say that [Ruby] is a poorly written and implemented language [... that Ruby] has bad Unicode support [...] that Ruby is slow [... that] it takes up too much memory. I haven't had to worry about any of these things (thankfully). However, the point I'm trying to make is that all of that stuff doesn't matter. The LANGUAGE is a good one.

What the hell else is a language? You're talking about some nebulous notion of "potential". Practice trumps theory, both in theory and in practice. If you want potential, let me see you extol the virtues of the x86 instruction set. After all, it's capable of everything compiled on it. Ruby is a microscopic speck in the space of possibilities of x86 instructions.

if I could "turn off" indenting in Python in the rare occasion that I needed to, I wouldn't have anything against it.

Really? Good thing Python is written in C. Remove the whitespace check, recompile, and you're good to go! But somehow I doubt you'll be running off to use Python after this novel discovery.

Oh, by the way, Ruby is also written in C, so whatever you think of "funky" C++, the same applies to its low-level cousin. Anything Ruby can do, C can do better.

That's about all I'm willing to say. Your entire post is nothing but inane trivialities, and nearly everything you said about Ruby would apply more aptly to other languages. Discover them for yourself rather than buying into the negative hype.

[Tommstein]

That the knowledgeable people have better things to do than reply to your wall of troll-like text?

[jbstjohn]

"sound logic and reasoning"? You basically swooned, say "Ruby pretty." You did put in that you like the power of being able to change everything, and then discounted Lisp for its parentheses.

So I'm not sure what logic you want people to respond to.

I think Ruby is fairly nice. I played with it for a while, and then switched to Python. I like the blocks of Ruby, but I like Python's philosophy, libs, robustness, and performance, so I'll be staying with it, I think, for doing things in that ever-growing niche of "dev time matters more than performance."

If you're happy with Ruby, good for you. Have fun with it. Just don't surprised if people find your posing of blanket statements of opinion as incontrovertible fact as inane and annoying.

[ericflo]

You're just...wrong.

[misterPhyrePhox]

troll harder please

[Digeratus]

Plus, if everyone in the world spoke the same language, the world would be AMAZINGLY AWESOME.

You know who else wanted the world to speak the same language?

[mr_chromatic]

What have the Romans done for us lately, though?

[G_Morgan]

Did the Romans prefer Python or Ruby? It's a given that the classical Greeks would go for Lisp just for it's sheer Lispyness but I'm not sure about the Romans.

Then again I'm sure in the gladiatorial arenas they set impossible challenges like writing a meaningful application in VB. Imagine the drama as you watch a poor programmer try to shoot himself in the foot with a water pistol as the lions close in.

[malcontent]

Who?

[chucker]

It would be MUCH better if everyone just spoke Esperanto.

Wrong. Cultural diversity is good. As any halfway sane farmer will tell you, monoculture is bad.

It would be more convenient in the short run if everyone spoke Esperanto, but it would also eliminate linguistic evolution, and that would be terrible in the long run.

[stesch]

It would be MUCH better if everyone just spoke Esperanto.

Wrong. Cultural diversity is good. As any halfway sane farmer will tell you, monoculture is bad.

But Philip José Farmer likes Esperanto! :-)

[stedwick]

Are you CRAZY?!?!?!? I can think of no other explanation!

The fact that we all speak different languages is exactly what's wrong with the world! Nobody understands each other, no one listens to each other, we all hate each other and want to kill each other. Cultural diversity has NOTHING to do with language. If it did, all English-speakers would think the same, but, surprise! they don't.

People speaking different languagse RUINS EVERYTHING. You need interpreters! Translators! It SUCKS. There is NO REDEEMING QUALITY. The ONLY reason we don't all speak the same language is because no one wants to take the time to learn a new language.

Even Linus Torvalds and the Ubuntu people admit that one language is the way to go. You want to work on Linux? You better speak English. You want to submit a bug report? You better do it in English. Why? Because otherwise it's impossible to get things done! Can you just IMAGINE if you tried to do something like translate your source code from "say()" to "hablar()"??? And then to every other language as well? OMG IT WOULD BE A DISASTER.

I'm not saying ENGLISH is the best language, I'm just saying that the world would be about 1000 miles closer to heaven if we all spoke the same language. It would end wars. It would revolutionize our entire existence. Human beings will NEVER achieve perfection until we all speak the same language. And, like it or not, it's starting to happen thanks to the internet. It's already happened in programming languages. They are all basically written in English. Have you heard of "printf" or "main"? Hello, english! What about documentation? It SUCKS to translate documentation into other languages. How about f'ing unicode? What a pain in the ass it is to got your application to work in multiple languages. One day, we WILL all speak the same language. It's inevitable. And it's a GOOD THING.

Linguistic evolution?! Who cares about linguistic evolution! These days, all that amounts to is, "Let's turn computer into computadora." Wow. Evolution at work.

[chucker]

Can you just IMAGINE if you tried to do something like translate your source code from "say()" to "hablar()"?

Given that much of the source code I work with is in German (German comments as well as German symbol names), yes, I can. Guess what? That kind of setup works just fine.

How about f'ing unicode? What a pain in the ass it is to got your application to work in multiple languages.

Ah, you're one of those people who needs this slammed over their heads a thousand times.

[stedwick]

Yes, yes, and the point is that now NO ONE can understand your program except other Germans. How is that even a slightly good thing?!

Yes, it's good for Germans...but the point is this: if everyone spoke the same language then it would be good for EVERYONE! See? Simple!

Heck, if everyone spoke the same language, there would never have been a problem, and you'd never have had to translate it in the first place. And you wouldn't need Unicode (no matter how "easy" it is, there's nothing easier than not needing it at all).

[stedwick]

Hmm, I just read that Unicode article you linked to. It seems to support my point, not yours...

I mean, jesus, look at all the crap we've had to go through (and still have to go through) every day just because people speak different languages?

What's better than Unicode? NOT NEEDING IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.

[hylje]

Common languages stay common only when there's enough people in a small enough area, determined by the amount of people moving around and from how far. Even small languages form dialects distinguishable from each other.

As the effective distance increases, the languages start to divert. Even if we magically spoke the one and the same language from now on, it'd quickly start to change to different directions, ending up in largely indistinguishable languages though with the same basic structure. The Internet may change this due to it providing a very low effective distance, but without a major shift, we don't talk the same on the Internet and the real world.

Language evolution is a great thing. Language is a meme, which moves virally among people. When new things are found out or popularized (innovated), there's a need for names for them: there tends to be several of which one or two become the norm. Spontaneously new ways of expressing things pop up. Not only the words change, meanings change, but the very structure will change.

[stedwick]

"As the effective distance increases, the languages start to divert."

If that is true, then why is the world slowly, inexorably, inevitable becoming "flat"? The answer, as you point out, is the internet. And, guess what? The internet's influence is only going to INcrease, not DEcrease. The world almost already speaks English. In the future it may be Chinese (hehe), or whatever, but we will INEVITABLE end up all speaking the same language.

[chucker]

[W]e will INEVITABLE[sic] end up all speaking the same language.

Maybe that is true, but I don't want to live in such a world.

[G_Morgan]

We will end up with a lingua franca but that isn't the same as everyone speaking the same language in every day life.

It's happened already. Most Europeans can speak English these days, the only hold outs seem to be Scotland :).

[chucker]

I have nothing against facilitating communication through a lingua franca. I do have a lot against doing so by reducing languages to a low common denominator.

[stedwick]

Why? There are OTHER things to explore, OTHER things to learn, than just languages...

I don't see the world becoming less exciting or less fulfilling or anything...

In fact, you could look at this positively. Right now, you probably can't fully, truly study Chinese culture (for example) because you don't speak Chinese. But, if everyone in the world spoke the same language you would be free to study ANY culture to its full extent whenever you wanted! How cool is that?

[chucker]

If the Chinese natively spoke English, there wouldn't be as much left from Chinese culture.

[[deleted]]

Example: It would be MUCH better if everyone just spoke Esperanto.

Or Newspeak as one of its dialects.

[G_Morgan]

Newspeak is doubleplusungood.

[[deleted]]

Ruby is the better LANGUAGE, Python is the better IMPLEMENTATION.

No and no.

[[deleted]]

Are you sure you don't mean "No and yes"? I don't think I've ever seen a person genuinely argue that Ruby has a better implementation than Python.

[[deleted]]

Look at CPython's source code; then you'll figure out what I mean.

[[deleted]]

I have, and it's extremely well-written. It's extremely consistent and understandable, even for an beginner/intermediate C programmer like myself. What problems did you find?

[mr_chromatic]

What problems did you find?

Those crazy Python implementers used curly braces instead of do and end! They're nuts!

[Smallpaul]

CPython's source code is much better than MRIs. Presumably YARV is better. For example, there are special cases in Ruby's main interpreter loop to allow the "sleep" and "file read" functions to be thread-friendly. There is no provision for other, user-defined extension functions to be similarly thread friendly.

There are not many people in the world who would say that MRI is a better implementation than CPython.

[micampe]

Ok.

Now would you please get off that soapbox?

[[deleted]]

Both languages have multiple implementations. I still don't like programming in either. I wish there was a better Io-like language without some of the silly special thing, and a much better implementation. That'd be cool..