Ruby will overtake Python within four years.

[Neil Hodgson]

   There are a few things I like about Ruby but not enough to convert over.
Some of the advantages to me over Python are that there is no separation
between types and classes and you can define iterators.

   The main thing I don't like in Ruby is the syntax. I have written lexers
for Python but Ruby was too much trouble being about half way between Perl
and Python in syntactical complexity. Using indentation for block structure
is, after some initial disorientation, a massive improvement.

   The Python community is putting in a large amount of effort into making
the language, library and tools better. Ruby has Matz who does an enormous
amount of excellent work but Python has many more people working just as
hard often leading to features with a higher degree of quality. The area
that meant the most to me when initially using Python was its support for
COM and related technologies on Windows. This support is better than for any
non-Microsoft language and even beats Microsoft's implementations in some
ways.

   As well as several good open source development environments for Python,
there are 4 commercial IDEs although 2 of these are still in beta. These are
not generic IDEs with the editor changed to style Python - they are new
projects with most of the code written in Python by people who believe in
Python.

   A comparison from a Rubyists point of view is at
http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/compar.html

   You could also look at Lua at www.lua.org. Its main advantage is its
small size which means its easier to understand how it works than either of
Python or Ruby.

   Neil