Ruby beginners

[vaibhav mishra]

I know a little bit of Java and am starting to learn python, is there any advantage of ruby over python, I am not talking about high-class stuff like GC and stuff, just want to know for a beginner's perspective which one is easier to learn, I tried ruby before but it did not took off, to make it clear I am a undergraduate student. I also read in amazon that this book is good for starters.

[Lasse Koskela]

Personally, I've found Ruby much easier (and exciting) to learn compared to Python. The syntax is nicer and error messages tend to be easier to grok than some of the messages I remember getting from the Python interpreter. Of course, this is subjective.

On a slightly less subjective stance (but just slightly), Ruby has a cleaner syntax in the sense that object-orientation hasn't been bolted on top of a non-OO language afterward like it was in Python.

Also, the Ruby community is very lively and fairly friendly. IRC and #ruby-lang is your trusted friend 24/7.

[vaibhav mishra]

Thanks for replying , and about that OO part you said, I experienced that too.

[David Black]

Hi --

I never learned Python in any depth (partly because I discovered Ruby, and fell in love with it, right around the same time I was tinkering with Python), but I've noticed that people say very similar things about the two languages. In fact, I remember an "Intro to Python" talk -- I think it was at OSCON -- where I literally felt like if you substituted "Python" with "Ruby", it could have been an intro to Ruby talk, just about. It was all about clean syntax, the power of the language, how it stays out of your way, how directly it translates your thoughts into code, etc.

I thought it was interesting that the commentary on the two languages, at least at the intro/overview level, was almost interchangeable.


David

[Michael Sullivan]

This webpage gives alternating perspectives on Python vs. Ruby. An interesting quote from the article summarizes how some people feel about their language choice:

"So far Pythonistas have emphasized their language's ease through consistency, extensive libraries, docs, etc, and argued that Ruby's advantages in elegance are overstated or nonexistent. Rubyists have stressed their language's ease through conceptual elegance, slightly greater depth of OO, the power of BlocksInRuby, and the nice feeling you get from doing things the RubyWay."

[vaibhav mishra]

@Michael thanks for the link , although most of it is too much for me to understand but even then it gives a perspective

@David as you said it might be a matter of personal choice, thanks for sharing your experience.