How's ruby compare to it older brother python

Trevor_Andrade1 · 30 April 2004 05:43

Check out http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?PythonVsRuby.

···

-----Original Message-----
From: Professor Boobenstein [mailto:DocBoobenstein@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, April 30, 2004 1:22 AM
To: ruby-talk ML
Subject: Re: How’s ruby compare to it older brother python

I quite agree with all of the below. As for how to work it out -
perhaps a FAQ could be written up on this regard? With regular updates
as deemed necessary. Perhaps a wiki site could be dedicated to this,
so that contributors may be added easily. Just my 0.02 units of your
favorite currency.

On Fri, 30 Apr 2004 13:50:35 +0900, trevor andrade trevor.andrade@utoronto.ca wrote:

I agree that flaming the question is not appropriate and its also bad for
the Ruby community in general. One of the things that attracted to me to
the Ruby language was the open-mindedness of the list members and the
friendliness of the Ruby community. One of the things that amazed me
about
the Ruby community (at least in the past) was that they almost never
flamed
people who discussed the advantages of other languages over Ruby. In fact
sometimes they even admitted certain languages had advantages over Ruby.
I
also thought Matz was very humble and unassuming (maybe because he is
Japanese) considering that he is the creator of the language. In fact I
don’t think I have ever heard Matz flame anyone. On the other hand the
exact opposite is true of the Python list. Guido has flamed people who
asked reasonable questions and based on my limited experience on the
Python
list I found him incredibly rude. Additionally the Pythonistas in general
appear to me to be very narrow minded and intolerant. One reason why I
have
avoided learning Lisp is that the Lispers are unbelievebly intolerant of
anyone questioning their language. It saddens me to see the same thing
starting to happen on the Ruby list.

I do not agree that this topic is not appropriate to discuss. This is a
topic that ought to be rehashed periodically because the are many possible
comparisons that can be made between Python and Ruby. It is possible to
compare the languages with respect to speed, power, syntax, libraries,
community, philosophy, readability, beauty etc. Additionally both
languages
are changing so there will always be new things to compare. Comparisons
are
useful in general because they help us to understand a languages strengths
and weaknesses and how it can be improved in the future. Also there is no
reason a person cannot use both Ruby and Python. They are not mutually
exclusive. Knowing something about each languages strengths and
weaknesses
would be helpful for deciding whether to use Python or Ruby on a given
project.

As to the question of the time wasted responding to these questions I
think
that is a total red herring. If you don’t want to waste time responding,
don’t read the message or just delete it. No one is forcing anyone to do
anything. How long does it take to press the delete button? Probably
less
time than it does for the guy who asked the question to search the
archives
for the answer to the question. I think the real reason that people don’t
like this sort of question is that they feel it is really an attack on the
Ruby language which they take personally. I really don’t understand why
anyone would take any of these questions personally even if they are
stealth
attacks on the Ruby language. Why not just answer the question
respectfully, referencing the archives if necessary and let that be the
end
of it.

Regards,
Trevor

-----Original Message-----
From: Ken Hilton [mailto:kenosis@comcast.net]
Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 2004 11:44 PM
To: ruby-talk ML
Subject: Re: How’s ruby compare to it older brother python

Amen, brother.

“Dan Doel” djd15@po.cwru.edu wrote in message
news:200404272217.26571.djd15@po.cwru.edu…

I don’t really mind this type of question a whole lot, but it does occur
a
lot. Personally, I think it’s best dealt with links to existing
discussions.

There’s no need to discuss this topic over and over when there are
archives
where it has all been said. It doesn’t take any longer to read the
archives
than it does to read new posts saying the same things.

Plus this particular topic attracts more trolling than the average
ruby-talk
thread, so they tend to grow huge with people making personal attacks at
each
other.

I don’t really think flaming the question was entirely appropriate, but
perhaps someone should collect a bunch of links to old ruby-talk posts
and
other resources so we can have a canned response to this topic and leave
it
at that.

Dan

James_Britt6 · 30 April 2004 15:13

Dan Doel wrote:

I’m not saying the topic isn’t appropriate. I don’t mind the topic, and I find
comparisons between languages interesting, and enjoy reading them. But,
looking around at ruby talk, I found clear Python vs. Ruby threads fom:

Apr 26, 2004 (this one)

Mar 28, 2004
http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/95984

Feb 1, 2004
http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/91151

I don’t know that Python and Ruby change so fast that they need to be
discussed anew every month.

That was my motivation for assembling this page a few months ago:
http://www.ruby-doc.org/RubyEyeForThePythonGuy.html

This topic is a permathread, and while it is relevant and interesting,
it is also, for many people on this list, all too familiar. I think
most people can learn what they want to know by following the links on
that page and reading the previous mailing list discussions, both here
and on comp.lang.python.

I just think that maybe it’d be good to gather together some stuff
from the archives and elsewhere so that “the answer” can just be
referenced. It’d cut down on the “Python is less OO than Ruby.” “No
it’s not, and besides Ruby is less functional.” “No it’s not…”

Such pages have existed for some time now, but the people creating and
perpetuating this discussion are, by and large, newcomers who haven’t
bothered to (or don’t care to) look for such resources.

James

Jean-Hugues_ROBERT · 30 April 2004 16:12

I agree vastly.

I also suspect some people enjoy talking to people too, not just
reading. I feel good when people help me. I feel good when I help
people.

This may be the true nature of mailing-lists, something more than
just useful, something pleasant. Hence their success.

Yours,

Jean-Hugues

···

At 00:13 01/05/2004 +0900, you wrote:

Such pages have existed for some time now, but the people creating and
perpetuating this discussion are, by and large, newcomers who haven’t
bothered to (or don’t care to) look for such resources.

James

Web: http://hdl.handle.net/1030.37/1.1
Phone: +33 (0) 4 92 27 74 17

Trevor_Andrade1 · 30 April 2004 21:47

I agree with you that a number of the people who ask these type of questions
are probably newcomers who haven’t done any research. A number are also
probably just trying to pick a fight. I also agree that there is nothing
wrong with being annoyed and tired of these type of questions. Still I fail
to understand how not answering their question and criticizing these type of
questions accomplishes anything. If they are trying to pick a fight then by
arguing with them you are just giving them exactly what they want. If they
are newbies,who in many cases don’t know any netiquette, you may put them
off the language all together. In fact newbies should be like gold to us
since the Ruby community is small. Many of these guys may still be deciding
between the two languages. We should be as encouraging to them as humanly
possible.

I also don’t see how criticizing the questioner is going to deter anybody
else from doing the same thing. If the type of person that asks this
quesiton is too lazy to do research then he won’t know what happened in the
past on the newsgroup, so he won’t know that the last guy who asked the
question was flamed and he will just do the same thing over again. This
will just result in another long thread that everybody supposedly hates.
The only advantage to venting your frustration is it makes you feel better.

Also aren’t the people who criticize the posters also being extremely
repetitive. After all criticizing a person because he hasn’t read the faq
is something that’s been done thousands of times since the beginning of
usenet. So why repeat the same old thing.

Here is a simple way to solve the whole problem:

Create a canned response that contains links to all the discussion in the
archives about this including this thread. Also links to any relevant FAQ,
websites, WIKI’s etc. Also indicate to the person gently in the canned
response that this question has been answered extensively and send them a
link to the netiquette for this newsgroup (which I don’t think has been
explicitly written up) which will explain that this question is
inappropriate and why. Finally let one person send this message to the
questioner and make it part of the netiquette that nobody else responds so
that the thread dies out. This is probably the most efficient solution to
the problem in terms of time, energy and thread length. It also nicer than
flaming or criticizing and less repetitive.

···

-----Original Message-----
From: James Britt [mailto:jamesUNDERBARb@neurogami.com]
Sent: Friday, April 30, 2004 11:14 AM
To: ruby-talk ML
Subject: Re: How’s ruby compare to it older brother python

Dan Doel wrote:

I’m not saying the topic isn’t appropriate. I don’t mind the topic, and I
find
comparisons between languages interesting, and enjoy reading them. But,
looking around at ruby talk, I found clear Python vs. Ruby threads fom:

Apr 26, 2004 (this one)

Mar 28, 2004
http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/95984

Feb 1, 2004
http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/91151

I don’t know that Python and Ruby change so fast that they need to be
discussed anew every month.

That was my motivation for assembling this page a few months ago:
http://www.ruby-doc.org/RubyEyeForThePythonGuy.html

This topic is a permathread, and while it is relevant and interesting,
it is also, for many people on this list, all too familiar. I think
most people can learn what they want to know by following the links on
that page and reading the previous mailing list discussions, both here
and on comp.lang.python.

I just think that maybe it’d be good to gather together some stuff
from the archives and elsewhere so that “the answer” can just be
referenced. It’d cut down on the “Python is less OO than Ruby.” “No
it’s not, and besides Ruby is less functional.” “No it’s not…”

Such pages have existed for some time now, but the people creating and
perpetuating this discussion are, by and large, newcomers who haven’t
bothered to (or don’t care to) look for such resources.

James

Trevor_Andrade1 · 30 April 2004 22:17

Here is a canned response

BEGINNING OF CANNED RESPONSE version 0.001

Dear Questioner,

You have asked something along the lines of “How does Ruby compare to
Python”. This question has been asked many times before and there is an
extensive set of resources with answers to this question. In the Ruby
community we pride ourselves on being friendly and welcoming, especially to
newcomers. However we also wanted to make sure that our newsgroup is
efficient and that we don’t spend too much time and energy answering
questions that have already been answered. Therefore we have created this
canned response that is intended to answer the question you are asking.
Below are links to websites, wikis and the Ruby archives that talk about
this topic in great detail. Also please take a look at the etiquette for
this newsgroup.

Some websites
http://www.ruby-doc.org/RubyEyeForThePythonGuy.html
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?PythonVsRuby

Link to Etiquette for the Ruby NewsGroup:
PUT LINK FOR ETIQUETTE HERE

Thread which explains why canned response was developed:
PUT LINK TO THIS THREAD HERE. ITS NOT UP ON RUBY NEWSGROUP ARCHIVE YET.

We hope that this adequately answers your question.

Regards,
Ruby Community

END OF CANNED RESPONSE

Anybody who wants to change anything or add any additional resources to this
reponse can add it or come up with something better. Then we can save this
canned response and use it whenever anybody asks this question. I think
this solution is better than any other for solving the repetitive question
problem. It is definitely better than flaming or criticizing.

Regards,
Trevor Andrade

···

-----Original Message-----
From: James Britt [mailto:jamesUNDERBARb@neurogami.com]
Sent: Friday, April 30, 2004 11:14 AM
To: ruby-talk ML
Subject: Re: How’s ruby compare to it older brother python

Dan Doel wrote:

I’m not saying the topic isn’t appropriate. I don’t mind the topic, and I
find
comparisons between languages interesting, and enjoy reading them. But,
looking around at ruby talk, I found clear Python vs. Ruby threads fom:

Apr 26, 2004 (this one)

Mar 28, 2004
http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/95984

Feb 1, 2004
http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/91151

I don’t know that Python and Ruby change so fast that they need to be
discussed anew every month.

That was my motivation for assembling this page a few months ago:
http://www.ruby-doc.org/RubyEyeForThePythonGuy.html

This topic is a permathread, and while it is relevant and interesting,
it is also, for many people on this list, all too familiar. I think
most people can learn what they want to know by following the links on
that page and reading the previous mailing list discussions, both here
and on comp.lang.python.

I just think that maybe it’d be good to gather together some stuff
from the archives and elsewhere so that “the answer” can just be
referenced. It’d cut down on the “Python is less OO than Ruby.” “No
it’s not, and besides Ruby is less functional.” “No it’s not…”

Such pages have existed for some time now, but the people creating and
perpetuating this discussion are, by and large, newcomers who haven’t
bothered to (or don’t care to) look for such resources.

James

Gavin_Sinclair · 1 May 2004 00:14

Good effort, Trevor. This definitely seems a step in the right
direction.

Gavin

···

On Saturday, May 1, 2004, 8:17:35 AM, trevor wrote:

END OF CANNED RESPONSE

Anybody who wants to change anything or add any additional resources to this
reponse can add it or come up with something better. Then we can save this
canned response and use it whenever anybody asks this question. I think
this solution is better than any other for solving the repetitive question
problem. It is definitely better than flaming or criticizing.

David_A_Black3 · 1 May 2004 01:41

Hi –

Here is a canned response
[…]
We hope that this adequately answers your question.

Regards,
Ruby Community

Your message may be worthwhile, but please don’t sign it like this.
It creates a rigid border between community and non-community, and
implies both that the person who posted the original message is
outside that border, and that you speak for everyone who is inside it.
I don’t think any of this is desireable, necessary, or necessarily
accurate.

David

···

On Sat, 1 May 2004, trevor andrade wrote:

–
David A. Black
dblack@wobblini.net

Jean-Hugues_ROBERT · 1 May 2004 06:27

I agree with you that a number of the people who ask these type of questions
are probably newcomers who haven’t done any research. A number are also
probably just trying to pick a fight. I also agree that there is nothing
wrong with being annoyed and tired of these type of questions. Still I fail
to understand how not answering their question and criticizing these type of
questions accomplishes anything. If they are trying to pick a fight then by
arguing with them you are just giving them exactly what they want. If they
are newbies,who in many cases don’t know any netiquette, you may put them
off the language all together. In fact newbies should be like gold to us
since the Ruby community is small. Many of these guys may still be deciding
between the two languages. We should be as encouraging to them as humanly
possible.

I also don’t see how criticizing the questioner is going to deter anybody
else from doing the same thing. If the type of person that asks this
quesiton is too lazy to do research then he won’t know what happened in the
past on the newsgroup, so he won’t know that the last guy who asked the
question was flamed and he will just do the same thing over again. This
will just result in another long thread that everybody supposedly hates.
The only advantage to venting your frustration is it makes you feel better.

Also aren’t the people who criticize the posters also being extremely
repetitive. After all criticizing a person because he hasn’t read the faq
is something that’s been done thousands of times since the beginning of
usenet. So why repeat the same old thing.

Here is a simple way to solve the whole problem:

Create a canned response that contains links to all the discussion in the
archives about this including this thread. Also links to any relevant FAQ,
websites, WIKI’s etc. Also indicate to the person gently in the canned
response that this question has been answered extensively and send them a
link to the netiquette for this newsgroup (which I don’t think has been
explicitly written up) which will explain that this question is
inappropriate and why. Finally let one person send this message to the
questioner and make it part of the netiquette that nobody else responds so
that the thread dies out. This is probably the most efficient solution to
the problem in terms of time, energy and thread length. It also nicer than
flaming or criticizing and less repetitive.

Hi,

That’s a very interesting idea. Works like an algorithm !

If it were implemented whoever would flame somebody for not
respecting the netiquette of the list would not be respecting
the netiquette (and should accordingly expect to receive the
canned etiquette msg…)

So, bootstrapping that system requires 2 files:

RubyTalkEtiquette, a file describing the etiquette.
RubyTalkCannedEtiquetteResponse, response template that refers to the
first one.
Probably stored in a Wiki.

Easy enough.

The most simple versions of these files is probably something like:

RubyTalkEtiquette:

We welcome new comers. Expect no flames here.

A new comer that does not respect the etiquette of this mailing list
is sent the content of file xxx/RubyTalkCannedEtiquetteResponse that
gently explains how to behave gently

We are all expected to have done some reasonable research before
asking a question.

It is usually a good idea to search (or read) the following sites:
* Ruby Programming Language
* – Feel free to add something here, keeping things ordered by
relevance –

RubyTalkCannedEtiquetteResponse:

Hi,

In this mailing list we promote an etiquette that make us all
more gentle people. You probably want to have a look at
http://xxxx/RubyTalkEtiquette

Yours,

Jean-Hugues

···

At 06:47 01/05/2004 +0900, you wrote:

-----Original Message-----
From: James Britt [mailto:jamesUNDERBARb@neurogami.com]
Sent: Friday, April 30, 2004 11:14 AM
To: ruby-talk ML
Subject: Re: How’s ruby compare to it older brother python

Dan Doel wrote:

I’m not saying the topic isn’t appropriate. I don’t mind the topic, and I
find
comparisons between languages interesting, and enjoy reading them. But,
looking around at ruby talk, I found clear Python vs. Ruby threads fom:

Apr 26, 2004 (this one)

Mar 28, 2004
http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/95984

Feb 1, 2004
http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/91151

I don’t know that Python and Ruby change so fast that they need to be
discussed anew every month.

That was my motivation for assembling this page a few months ago:
http://www.ruby-doc.org/RubyEyeForThePythonGuy.html

This topic is a permathread, and while it is relevant and interesting,
it is also, for many people on this list, all too familiar. I think
most people can learn what they want to know by following the links on
that page and reading the previous mailing list discussions, both here
and on comp.lang.python.

I just think that maybe it’d be good to gather together some stuff
from the archives and elsewhere so that “the answer” can just be
referenced. It’d cut down on the “Python is less OO than Ruby.” “No
it’s not, and besides Ruby is less functional.” “No it’s not…”

Such pages have existed for some time now, but the people creating and
perpetuating this discussion are, by and large, newcomers who haven’t
bothered to (or don’t care to) look for such resources.

James

Web: http://hdl.handle.net/1030.37/1.1
Phone: +33 (0) 4 92 27 74 17

Laurent_Julliard4 · 1 May 2004 09:19

a little thing: could you please cut a little more from the quoted
messages in your answers? having to scroll many times is annoying…
Please don’t take this as a personal offence, I’d like not to sound
rude .

···

il Sat, 1 May 2004 15:27:56 +0900, Jean-Hugues ROBERT jean_hugues_robert@yahoo.com ha scritto::

Jean-Hugues_ROBERT · 1 May 2004 12:07

Sure. No offense. The thing is some people get offended when you
delete too much. I understand that signal/noise is important.
Sometimes I add a line at the beginning of my msgs describing
the msg, that way people can easily skip msg of no interest to them.

Finding the proper balance is not easy. There might be some well
accepted rules however. But I don’t know them.

Yours,

Jean-Hugues

···

At 18:19 01/05/2004 +0900, you wrote:

il Sat, 1 May 2004 15:27:56 +0900, Jean-Hugues ROBERT >jean_hugues_robert@yahoo.com ha scritto::

a little thing: could you please cut a little more from the quoted
messages in your answers? having to scroll many times is annoying…
Please don’t take this as a personal offence, I’d like not to sound
rude .

Web: http://hdl.handle.net/1030.37/1.1
Phone: +33 (0) 4 92 27 74 17

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How's ruby compare to it older brother python

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