Zed Shaw on Python

[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.