When I learned Python, my use of Perl dropped dramatically, but did not quite go away. Basically, if it could fit on a page, I would tend to write it in Perl; for everything else, I would use Python. Needless to say, one can do a lot in one page of Perl.
Since I learned Ruby, my usage of Perl for new stuff has essentially been eliminated.
Despite loving blocks, regular expressions as first class objects, a syntax which involves less parenthesis, and a huge number of small but important aspects of the library (e.g., join is a method on Array vs String, sort returns the value, so it can be used in expressions such as for i in dict.keys.sort, etc), Ruby hasn’t quite displaced Python completely for me. The difference isn’t the language, but the libraries. Outside of Weirich and DHH, the Ruby libraries are at best uneven. This even includes libraries which are included with the language. Many seem to be baubles that were created by authors without an attention to detail, and subsequently abandoned. Of particular issue to both Tim and myself is the state of the XML libraries. By contrast, the Python libraries tend to be pretty good (notable exception: HTTP, use Joe’s instead).
Perl 6 could very well bring me back.
Not all of DHH’s stuff deserves to be placed on a pedestal. For example, the ActiveSupport library and The Chainsaw Infanticide Logger Manuever. But yes, Ruby’s XML stuff needs help, badly. The sooner I can ditch REXML, the happier I’ll be. I’m tired of monkey patching that beast and working around its bugs and generally being disappointed by its terrible performance. I constantly regret tying FeedTools so tightly to it.
Stephen: never looked at Jifty before. First impression: it cops out on my favorite feature of Rails: support for TDD. Regression testing web apps requires a bit of planning. With Rails, access to everything you need — from status codes to HTTP headers to URI mappings to XPath expressions over the results — is built in and at your fingertips.
Tony: First glance, and Hpricot appears to me to be yet another parser based on regexes. Can it handle namespaces? Encodings? When handing HTML, does it recover gracefully from unmatched quotes in attributes? How does it handle:
<title>The difference between the &amp; entity and the & character</title>
Don’t get me wrong, _why is unquestionably brilliant, but what happens once you have come to depend on this code but you come across a problem which doesn’t quite catch his fancy?
William: I’m not working on YARV, but it appears to be progressing. It should bring better Unicode, threading, and performance — all welcome improvements.
the Ruby libxml2 bindings are once again under active development
Where is the active development going on? this doesn’t look very active to me.
I do believe that libxml2 is a reasonable candidate, particularly for people who want full implementations of things like xpath. It has been a while since I looked at the Ruby/libxml2 bindings, and it looked to me like it needed to be started over. I know that sounds scary, but according to the libxml2 page, the right way to do this is to generate the API based on the description file. And that can be totally automated.
Sam Ruby’s post on Python-vs-Ruby was interesting because it pretty much matches my experience as well. The reason I stuck with Perl was that, well, there were some Perl idioms that Python lacked that I just liked too darn much to do away with (eg: v. sim...
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Ruby è senza dubbio il linguaggio di programmazione dell’ultimo anno (spinto da quella gemma che è RubyOnRails), ma dopo la mia iniziale infatuazione (con diversi approfondimenti sul tema) sono ritornato a Python, con PHP sempre e comunque presente...
Jeremy Zawodny : Sam Ruby: Python vs Ruby - Sam Ruby: Python vs Ruby: “Since I learned Ruby, my usage of Perl for new stuff has essentially been eliminated.” Tags : links...
Oh, I say. It seems that Sam Ruby is another member of the “Ruby ‘til [Perl] 6” club. I like Ruby a lot. For the kind dynamic OO/Functional coding style that I espouse, it’s a better Perl than Perl simply because it’s...
Sam Ruby: Python vs Ruby (tags: perl ruby python) Some Guy Ranting » Blog Archive » Java Programmers are the Erotic Furries of Programming (tags: java) [link] (tags: design reference perl) WinTabber - Tab...
The links in Zed’s post point to a pastebin whose contents have long since been garbage collected, and nowhere else where “chainsaw infanticide” is mentioned is the actual code quoted. Can you post the pertinent bits somewhere so that us folks who only do Ruby vicariously via weblogs get a chance see what that complaint is all about?
Until the day I finally decide to look into who actually developed the Ruby language, I always assumed Sam DID develop Ruby!
It was one of those things where I thought “Ruby? Hmmm... I guess it would make sense for someone like Sam Ruby to get fed up dealing with everybody elses languages and develop his own from scratch” which to be honest, it still does. ;)
Some compelling (to me, at least) articles/etc. on the excellence of Ruby: Martin Fower says people he works with are significantly more productive in Ruby. Tim Bray says: “Ruby is remarkably, perhaps irresistibly, attractive. Over the last...
TAP into ITS: Thinking about Social Computing on Campus Powazek: Just a Thought: 10 Insights on Blogs from PEW A 10 point digest and annotation of the recent Pew Internet blogging report Ray Ozzie on Attention | AttentionTrust.org Attention Trust...
Oh, I say. It seems that Sam Ruby is another member of the “Ruby ‘til [Perl] 6” club. I like Ruby a lot. For the kind dynamic OO/Functional coding style that I espouse, it’s a better Perl than Perl simply because it’s...
Da das letzte Projekt abgeschlossen ist und ich daher einen neuen Zeitkiller brauche, habe ich mir überlegt, eine neue Sprache zu lernen - Programmiersprache natürlich. Für mich als web-affinen Geek kommen, so wie ich das sehe, Ruby und Python in...
With the release of Python 2.5, there are fewer things that are natural in Ruby that aren’t natural in Python. One of our developers blogged on this topic recently (mostly focusing on Python, but drawing comparisons to Ruby as well) here.
Avendo deciso di ributtarmi a capofitto nel fantastico mondo del webdesign, mi sono studiato in giro le varie soluzioni per uno sviluppo rapido e coerente delle proprie applicazioni web. Per chi avesse dormito negli ultimi 10 anni, sono finiti...
Python vs. PHP - Warum nicht PHP? Perl vs. Python - Warum ich von Perl nach Python umgestiegen bin Python vs. Perl & TcL - Die Skriptsprache Python im Vergleich zu Perl und Tcl Python vs. Ruby Should I Learn Python or Ruby next? Why Python?...
Oh, I say. It seems that Sam Ruby is another member of the “Ruby ’til [Perl] 6” club. I like Ruby a lot. For the kind dynamic OO/Functional coding style that I espouse, it’s a better Perl than Perl simply because it’s so much less verbose (I got so...