Interview: Mark "Markey" Kretschmann (Not the Gentoo Weekly News)

Well, I prefer Python.  So don't be surprised that the random thoughts I throw out here favor
it.  But I've used both. 

They are both dynamically typed languages and have much similarity with each other.  In the
Python culture being "explicit" is strongly preferred.  Ruby fans tend to like some
implicitness.  Ruby looks a bit more like Perl.  There are tons more libaries and support for
things like dbus, beagle, tracker, etc. for python. (Just do a "yum list" or whatever and grep
for ruby and python.  There *is* no comparison. (I find this to be a significant point in my
work.)  If you are doing web development, Rails is more popular than all the Python based
frameworks put together.  But in my opinion, Django toasts Rails for quality and good design.
Outside of web development, python is used a lot more and Python programmers are in a lot
greater demand.  Python runs circles around Ruby for speed.  But neither is a race horse.
Sometimes, the speed of the language is important, and sometimes not.  Ruby has a JVM based
runtime "on the way", but it's been "on the way" for years, and last I tried it, the
performance didn't seem that great.  With python, you have Iron Python (which is quite fast, I
hear) for .Net integrategration.  And Jython, which gives you access to the world of java
class libraries, but is always a release or two behind CPython.

Rails popularity cannot be denied.  (Just go to Amazon and type "Ruby On Rails" in the search
bar.)  But I suspect that if it *weren't* for rails, people would be saying "Ruby?  What's
Ruby?"

disclaimed: I'm biased towards Python.

Ruby may be a better language.  Or it may not be -- I'm not entirely sure.  But Python has a
richer library of mature tools.  This is the deciding factor for me, currently when I choose
to start a new coding project.

I don't just mean the Python Standard Library, although it is good.  I mean also the CPython
interpreter, and the many, many mature, high-quality, well-tested open source Python tools out
there such as the Twisted framework, and, well, just too many to name.  See
http://pypi.python.org for starters, or just type "<PROGRAMMING TASK YOU WANT TO DO> Python"
into google.

Note that part of the reason for this cornucopeia is Python's long tradition of re-using C/C++
code instead of rewriting it into Python code.  Also, of course, the several mature, high
quality tools to ease and automate re-use of C/C++ code.  ;-)

Regards,

Zooko

Honestly, I don't understand the "Python is the anti-christ" mentality from Ruby people.  When
I'm starting a project, I'll use Ruby if I don't need to collaborate with anyone, because it's
more fun.  I'll go with Python if I feel the need to attract other developers (as Python has
*much* more momentum), or if co-workers need to understand it.  However, they're both close
enough that switching between the two isn't a big deal.

I think the "Python is the antichrist" sentiment stems from a sort of sibling envy. Python and
Ruby are similar enough to compete for the same 'niche', and Python has been 'winning' in the
sense of # of people using it, of libraries, integration with other tools, etc. Some Ruby
people resent that, and I can sort of understand them - if Python didn't exist, Ruby might be
where Python is now. Still, I hope that the 'antichrist' sentiment is only held by a minority,
because it is quite unproductive and inappropriate.

Regarding the languages themselves, again, the similarities are fairly big, when you compare
them both to, say, C. Perhaps the main practical difference is, as mentioned above, far more
support for Python with libraries, development of fascinating projects like PyPy, and so
forth. Syntax-wise, the most immediately-noticeable difference is Python's enforced
indentation, which most people either love or hate. Personally, I like it; both Python and
Ruby do well to remove the curly braces popular in other languages, but only Python goes one
step further and also removes the need to close indentations with "end" and so forth. Anything
that makes code shorter is good in my book.

There are lots of other small syntactical differences, that people argue about quite a lot
online, but again I'd stress the similarities.

I'm amazed by all the comments here. Apparently Mark missed that calling a language the
"antichrist" has become a serious way to talk about programming languages. You guys realize
that the term Antichrist refers to an embodiment of pure evil? The being in Christian
mythology that will bring about the end of the world? Mark was obviously exaggerating a bit. 

To some extent its the LWN's editors wanting to stir something up for picking this part of the
interview (is a C++ developer's opinion on Ruby vs. Python that pivotal?), but it's everyone
elses fault for not reading it in the full laid-back context.

Well, I'm probably more "religiously affiliated" than you'd like, but I 
try to be fairly objective about these things....

I was a Perl and C programmer for a long time.  I've played around with 
Python a bit, and kept getting annoyed by its object model.  It's 
inconsistent, and required using class methods where I expected to be 
able to use object methods.  Then there's the seemingly pointless 
dichotomy between tuples and arrays; and the limit of one expression 
inside a lambda also seems pointless.

I also don't like Python's inability to be programmed functionally; 
side-effects abound, and it forces separating every little action into a 
temporary variable and another line.

I don't care about the syntax.  Much.  Significant indentation is fine, 
though in Python I do tend to miss having some sort of definite markers 
to show where blocks end.

Then I discovered Ruby, and finally found a language with a complete 
object model -- *everything* is an object.  Ruby is the first language I 
used where the OO was complete enough to be both sensible and useful.  
Methods can be quickly and easily chained together (though watch out for 
potentially nil objects).  Functional programming is easy, though not 
required.

And I've only scratched the surface of what Ruby is capable of; its 
meta-programming capabilities give quite a bit of power.

Basically Ruby has Lisp's power, Smalltalk's OO, Perl's 
programmer-friendliness (or better), but it fixes most of the problems of 
all of those.

Python has more popularity now because its popularity started earlier 
(and because Perl stagnated), and there are definitely major surface 
similarities between Python and Ruby (dynamic, OO), but Ruby is capable 
of so much more.

As far as I'm concerned, Ruby's biggest problems are its slowness and its 
library immaturity.  Improving the speed is a major goal of the 
developers now, and the next version should have much better speed; in 
addition there are other implementations with better speed, including 
Rubinius and JRuby.   The libraries are quickly catching up to Python, 
and if you use JRuby you get the benefit of Java libraries.

Both Python and Ruby, at least in their original native-C implementations, are pretty poorly
thought out in regard to multithreading. Multicore CPUs are steadily becoming things of today,
so initial design flaws of these languages are quite alarming as they are going to make them
useless in the new world. AFAIK, their Java&.Net rewrites (Jython/JRuby/IronPython/Ruby.Net)
use underlying threading facilities so they have more chances to succeed. But such
reimplementations significantly change their original class/modules system also to adapt it to
the underlying platform. As well this reduces their "dynamicity" in some extent.

As to "dynamicity", Ruby feels much more flexible and ductile than Python (the whole Rails
framework is largely built upon these features). But the resulting "overly-dynamic" programs
often consume more CPU time and RAM to run than equally-functional but somewhat dumbed-down
and task-specific implementation in Python.

And the last my word would be about Amarok. I tried to use version 1.4.7 as provided by Ubuntu
gutsy, and it has been capable to eat the whole my CPU (Duron 1800) just sitting idle. You
know, it likes to redraw a matrix of small grey/blue squares on its spectrogram indicator.
Completely useless bling, but this keeps Amarok and X server busy all the time. I would like
this to be turned off by default. Else, so far I prefer xine&mplayer as much lighter
solutions.

You know that Amarok is written in C++ right? Mark obviously doesn't believe Ruby is a silver
bullet.

But thanks for not taking this seriously at least. ;)

http://xkcd.com/312/
http://xkcd.com/224/

On the other hand....  http://xkcd.com/353/

I would not be so quick to hope to banish the snake from the world.  In some versions of text
from which the old testament was selected; it was the snake that spoke the truth.  Hence, the
credo that no good deed goes unpunished seems to be the more valid lesson.  Therefore, I would
suggest less religiosity, let's base our arguments on observable facts.  That is, even when
they are our deeply held preferences.  Remember, we are talking about a scripting language not
a panacea to the World's ills.

I think that's his purpose, as a main developer of amarok who likes ruby 
he uses this power to get people install Ruby on their machines (...and 
hopefully discover its beauty). This also means that more distributions 
will install ruby by default.
But actually the same happens with other software too all the time, if 
some more or less important project adds a new requirement, distros will 
install it. It's just that the developers usually don't express it that 
way.

OTOH, I guess amarok simply needed a scripting language, so they decided 
for Ruby, what's wrong with that ?

I'm biased, I like Ruby too. :-)

Alex

I wouldn't venture to guess which is better to start with:  I learned
Python originally ten years ago, and have been using it to earn my
keep daily since then.

I recommend Mark Pilgrim's "Dive Into Python" as the best tutorial for
experienced programmers:

  http://diveintopython.org/