What's better about Ruby than Python?

[Andrew Dalke]

Alex:
> Similarly, you do not tend to see in the
> Linux community people who are convinced with sufficiently high
> intensity that case sensitivity in a filesystem is idiocy (I do believe
> that, but not intensely enough to drop Linux's other advantages:-).

And fewer who accept, much less understand, Jef Raskin's views
against a hierarchical file system at all. LEAP-LEAP!

> To put it another way: I _DO_ have a different viewpoint from the
> majority of Python users regarding case sensitivity -- I think it's
> a wart in the language.

While I agree that the file system should be case insensitive but
case preserving (making internationalization all that more fun),
I confess to being fond of the

   atom = Atom()

idiom.  I know it breaks down, eg, for a function which returns
a newly created class, but it's too ingrained in me.

OTOH, I just thought about it some more.  It's rare that I
only make a single instance, so

  atom1 = Atom()
  atom2 = Atom()
  new_atom = Atom()

are more common than the 'atom =' version.  I'll think
about it as I write new code.

                    Andrew
                    dalke at dalkescientific.com