ADM introduction: A ranty tranny, a developer, an abuse survivor

I have actually found that Ruby and Python exist on some weird toggle in which you can like one, or the other, or neither, but never both.

I literally have never met a person who likes both.

 

This has been very much my experience as well, so I'll cosign it.

HI OP I've seen you around a lot, though I mostly lurk. I tend to like your thoughts, though.

 

I am going to try to be the first person to like both! Cause Ruby is on the list after Python. Programming languages are collected like pokemon, right?

 

More or less, actually.

 

It's good to learn lots of languages, because you get to see the common threads, how different languages encourage different ways to attack problems, and stuff like that. If you do coding for a living, too, it's good to keep learning new things and not let your learning muscles atrophy, because eventually you'll need to learn something new and the best way to both be sure you still can, and to convince others you can, is to never stop.

At the same time, it's good to dig in deep in a favorite or useful language and learn its intricacies and idioms, because depth of knowledge is also useful and you can work faster and more effectively.

 

My programming background is mostly Java/C-family/F#, I am a baby programmer. So... What is it about Ruby that you don't like / Python that you like?

I've been told I should learn Python, but I'm being slow about it. Too much on the research list! And now we all know why I stopped sperging about human language, I've been packing my brain full of programming knowledge and I don't have enough memorization spoons to learn human languages too. =_= Or something.

 

One of the things I like pointing at, is I'm more or less exclusively a Python developer, but learning to write Go taught me some ideas that got me improving my Python code immensely.

And this is why I'm mostly exclusively a Python dev.

 

So, when you're new, Python and Ruby seem to share a lot. They're dynamically typed interpreted languages. They're both related to human language. They both have fairly strong libraries.

Where my interaction with Ruby breaks down is that while it's like Python and they are related to how code interacts with people, they've approached that relationship from opposite sides. There's a running joke among Python developers (And people who just know Python) that you can write pseudocode that is valid Python. This is more true for me where my brain immediately writes in Python syntax so my pseudocode and my python code look very similar. This is actually MORE true in Ruby. And that's actually a problem.

Python approaches the relationship with human language from a readability standpoint: Because code will (usually) be read many more times than it will be written, it gives up a little writing speed to make maintenance easier.

Ruby comes at it from the opposite way: The writer should be able to speak Ruby however is most comfortable, and it should work. I can literally dump ideas into the interpreter and have them function the way my brain thinks they should. Which is awesome as far as writing goes. But give me a week separation? I can't read my OWN code, let alone anyone else's. Basically, ruby encourages dozens of minor dialects of the language. And why it's fascinating, it's absolutely a pain.

When you get there, I'm totally up for geeking about Python. I LOVE researching all the weird shit that Python does. And yelling about some of the maintenance teams. Because so much stupid once in a while. (This is true of all open source libraries.)

 

I love Go even though as a young-ish language it still has its rough edges. Scarcely touched Python, and I wonder if I'd like it. I do not like Ruby; it feels like an inferior Perl to me.

I'm one of the breed whose first programming language was 68k assembly …

 

That sounds fascinating; I'll definitely bounce about it when I get to it. :D Right now, I'm trying to pick up more about Solr, the database system we use at work, because it's hideously complicated. And, uh, web usability and F# tricks and ARR optimization and MY READING LIST IS REALLY LONG.

I've been programming professionally for about a year and a half, mostly building/maintaining a site in .NET, with F# data-wrangling on the back-end. Learned in Java at school, though. And they STILL made us learn assembly.

 

Oh hey, programming stuff.

Looks like the language I'll tackle after Ruby will be Python, just to see what the fuss is about ::D (I'm minoring in computer science and the language is Java, but I still need to make the jump to User Interface, and also how to and which files to access)

 

Pretty sure Java can do all of that?

And if it can't, HTML5 UIs are super easy and local webservers are awesome.

 

I know Java can do all of that, but somehow everyone else just sort of can do that and no one ever taught me. All I can currently do is make .java files that I can totally run in eclipse or bluej, but... yeah ::/

 

I created a programming thread in the General Chatter subforum, since there seems to be interest in it!

 

Yeah, I found that computer science coursework wasn't very helpful. :P I would strongly suggest getting an internship if you can; most practical CS stuff still seems to be learned on the job, and entry level programming jobs can be tough to find.

 

Seconded. My internship has basically rendered a lot of my CS education so far worthless b/c I learned it faster and better on the job.

 

I like both --- I prefer Python's syntax and structure but I find Ruby to have a better set of tools for web development, so I've used both depending on the project. :) (I'm also not a full-time developer, so it's possible that if I coded more I'd settle into one.) Also, hi!

 

So, if anyone wants to see me. Here's me. 2011 and 2015.