On: Ask HN: What does Ruby have that Python doesn't?

[subwindow]

I couldn't disagree more.

Even if you spend a month learning Ruby and never use it again, it will still irrevocably change the way you approach writing code.

[aconbere → subwindow]

I definitely did not have this effect on me. Usually when I hear comments like this it's from Java programmers. But coming from a background of already knowing several expressive dynamic languages (Python, Perl) and having a strong functional background in Lisp. I didn't really find Ruby that mind blowing.

Very cool? YES! worth learning? Absolutely! "changing the way I write code irrevocably? Not a chance!

[davidw → aconbere]

Yeah, if you already know Python, Ruby just isn't that big a leap. You've got to jump further to find something that will be useful/mind altering.

[silentbicycle → davidw]

I've found OCaml to be quite complementary to Python: It's excellent for functional programming and has one of the most sophisticated compile-time error checking systems I've ever used (two things relatively weak in Python). Both are very pragmatic and portable languages, as well. The OCaml community is tiny and rather quiet compared to Python's, though.

[subwindow → aconbere]

I didn't say that it would change the way you write code, I said it would change the way you approach writing code.

I'm fairly confident that it did. Once you've really learned it, Ruby creates paths in your brain that you will try to follow forever, even if you're not coding in Ruby anymore.

If it didn't, then you never gave Ruby a real chance.

[scott_s → subwindow]

I think the point your missing is aconbere already traversed those paths in his brain with other languages. Ruby, as far as I know, hasn't introduced any new programming language concepts.

[aconbere → subwindow]

It's cool that it changed the way you approach writing code, but it's more than a little presumptuous to go and apply that experience beyond yourself. I'm sorry if I didn't see much in ruby that I hadn't already seen, it's not as though ruby is pushing through a new paradigm.

Certainly the "ah-ha" moment for ruby was much less intense than my ah-ha moment of Lisp, Python, SmallTalk and Erlang. And it's definitely more straight forward to me than Haskell, Prolog, OCAML or Forth.

That's just the reality of it.

[tptacek → subwindow]

I'll join the peanut gallery and suggest that if "irrevocably changing the way you approach writing code" is the goal, you spend a month with Lisp or C before you do Ruby.

[subwindow → tptacek]

I agree that Lisp would have as much of an impact, if not more. I never said it was mutually exclusive with anything else in this benefit.

[maxklein → subwindow]

You mean that ruby has a greater learning effect than python on a C++ programmer?

[rbanffy → maxklein]

If we are talking a month of involvement, you may as well learn both.

I would also throw Lisp in. And Forth. And Haskell. And Smalltalk...

But then, we are not talking about a month anymore...