I guess I should begin by introducing myself: My name is Rüdiger Flaig, I live in Heidelberg/Germany (yes indeed, there are not only tourists there) and am a JOAT by profession (Jack Of All Trades). Among other weird things, I am currently teaching immunology and bioinformatics at the once-famous University of Heidelberg. Into this little secluded world of ours, so far dominated by rigid C++ stalwarts, I have successfully introduced Python! I have been lurking on this list for quite a while, interested to watch the further development of the streaked reptile.
As students keep on asking me about the differences between languages and the pros and cons, I think I may claim some familiarity with other languages too, especially Python's self-declared antithesis, Ruby. The recent discussion about anonymous blocks immediately brought Ruby to my mind once more, since -- as you will know -- Ruby does have ABs, and rubynos are very proud of them, as they are generally of their more "flexible" program structure. However, I have seen lots of Ruby code and do not really feel that this contributes in any way to the expressiveness of the language. Lambdas are handy for very microscopic matters, but in general I think that one of Python's greatest strengths is the way in which its rather rigid layout combines with the overall approach to force coders to disentangle complex operations.
So I cannot really see any benefit in ABs... Just the 0.02 of a serpent lover, but maybe someone's interested in hearing something like an outsider's opinion.
Cheers,
Rüdiger
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Chevalier Dr. Dr. Ruediger Marcus Flaig
Institute for Immunology
University of Heidelberg
Im Neuenheimer Feld 305, D-69120 Heidelberg, FRG
On Wed, Apr 20, 2005, flaig@sanctacaris.net wrote:
As students keep on asking me about the differences between languages and the pros and cons, I think I may claim some familiarity with other languages too, especially Python's self-declared antithesis, Ruby.
That seems a little odd to me. To the extent that Python has an antithesis, it would be either C++ or Perl. Ruby is antithetical to some of Python's core ideology because it borrows from Perl, but Ruby is much more similar to Python than Perl is. -- Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ "The joy of coding Python should be in seeing short, concise, readable classes that express a lot of action in a small amount of clear code -- not in reams of trivial code that bores the reader to death." --GvR
On Wed, Apr 20, 2005 at 08:18:11AM -0700, Aahz wrote:
antithesis, it would be either C++ or Perl. Ruby is antithetical to some of Python's core ideology because it borrows from Perl, but Ruby is much more similar to Python than Perl is.
I'm not that familiar with the Ruby community; might it be that they consider Ruby to be Python's antithesis, in that it returns to bracketing instead of Python's indentation? --amk
participants (3)
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