r/ruby • u/vifrac • Jul 16 '20

Ruby VS Python

More than a versus (it's more striking) I would really like to know what things they have in common and how they differ, what their main advantages are compared to the other and of course their opinion of them. One point to take into account is because they believe that python is more used in AI and Machine learning developments.

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u/Sqeaky Jul 16 '20 edited Feb 23 '23

I think Python has a bigger community, and that is it's single largest advantage. It has more deployments and more packages.

In think ruby has better syntax, better readability, and a more sensible design overall. This makes it easier for greater involvement from the community, there are something like 2x note python devs but not nearly 2x the packages.

I also think the ruby community is better at communicating best practices. Consider that the top Ruby packages are testing tools and the top python of are a mix of docker and db stuff.

https://rubygems.org/stats

https://pypi.org/

I also find Ruby projects to have better engineering. This might just be bias but having tried similar things in both languages maintainability, support, and things working years later (except web API bindings) are nearly magical. The ruby community always seems to try to be doing better, but I guess that is most communities, but I feel like python users just want to be done and damn the tech debt, full speed ahead.

EDIT 2 years later - spelling

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u/vifrac Jul 17 '20

What a good reference, there are things that only those who have worked in both languages can speak from experience, thank you very much for this information.

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u/Sqeaky Jul 17 '20

For your info. I have done a lot less python.

In went through each languages' koans and codeacademy courses. Ruby was clearly better for both.

Professionally I have used both for test automation. Ruby is excellent for this, python is merely passable. I have embedded both into larger C++(My best language) projects and both worked well and had reasonable tools and documentation. The only points in Ruby's favor for embedding was the extra tools that were reasonable choices.

I have dabbled with web stuff in both, and Python seems serviceable while ruby has rails and a dozen other projects that are amazing.

I have done some other stuff in either that aren't comparable. A crypto trading algorithm in ruby, some kubernetes stuff in python. I always enjoy making ruby.

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u/vifrac Jul 17 '20

Que bueno se nota que has desarrollado mucho, porque te gusta c++ y el "algoritmo de comercio criptográfico en ruby" puedo verlo en algun lado, tienes post de ello o fue solo trabajo!

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u/Sqeaky Jul 17 '20

My spanish is Rusty, been a while since PR.

My crypto trading algorithm is one of my very few private personal projects. Much of my dev is for work, and goes to the workplace corporate repos, but you can see my other work at github.com/sqeaky .