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Comment by db42 | Hacker News Reader

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Ruby would be Neo-Paganism - A mixture of different languages and ideas that was beaten together into something that might be identified as a language. Its adherents are growing fast, and although most people look at them suspiciously, they are mostly well-meaning people with no intention of harming anyone.

Python would be Humanism: It's simple, unrestrictive, and all you need to follow it is common sense. Many of the followers claim to feel relieved from all the burden imposed by other languages, and that they have rediscovered the joy of programming. There are some who say that it is a form of pseudo-code.

Clearly the author is a python programmer. Otherwise these two statements would have been reversed (i.e. Ruby is simple, unrestrictive, joyful, and Python is neo-paganism).

Yea, I agree the guy is pro-Python. Looking at it from a cultural perspective though, I think the article is dead on. Python people seem more straight-forward/pragmatic with less awe for "magic" than Rubyists. Ruby does seem to be more spiritual (pagan) - with more easy-going syntax.

Yes -- Python is a non-religion because it is great for people who don't care about programming for itself but who have to do programming in their work. You will not find many Rubyists who say, "Gee, I don't mind programming, but I can't relate to people who feel fulfilled by writing beautiful code. I don't understand much about this language but what I understand seems to be enough to read and write code and get my work done." For them, the "joy of Python" is simply the absence of various forms of pain caused by the need to be overly intellectually involved with something tangential to their work. It's like the joy of waking up on Sunday morning and going off to do something you really want to do instead of going to a cathedral and sitting bored surrounded by people who are transported by the beautiful stained glass, hymns, communion with God, and everything else you don't care about.

P.S. Every time I say this about Python, somebody points out that decorators have enabled complicated metaprogramming in Python and now you are as likely to be surprised and befuddled in Python as in any other language, but I think (hope) that that is only true if you're using certain web application frameworks.

A mixture of different languages and ideas that was beaten together into something that might be identified as a language. Its adherents are growing fast, and although most people look at them suspiciously, they are mostly well-meaning people with no intention of harming anyone.

You might be right about Ruby being simple, unrestrictive and joyful (qualities I also found in Python when I was learning it), but I don't see how you could say that the above is true about Python.

Anyway, in a follow up post, the author does claim that he is no python fanboy.

Plus, it's strange to categorize "humanism" as a religion, as well as categorizing "Wicca" and "neo-paganism" as completely different religions.

Characterizing Lisp as Zen Buddhism seems odd, though the given rationale makes sense; to my understanding, Zen Buddhism seems to entail contemplating questions that don't have logical answers and getting beaten with a stick for answering incorrectly, and while there are many programming languages like that, I don't get the impression that Lisp is one :)

Humanism is quite often tagged a religion. The "god" is simply man.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#Legal_mentions...

I was curious where the 'pythonic' coding style played into being unrestrictive when it comes to how everybody writes in that language.

C# would be Mormonism - At first glance, it's the same as Java, but at a closer look you realize that it's controlled by a single corporation…

Oh, wait.

I would say Haskell is protestantism, since its world is immutable. Outcome depends on some initial state only known to the omniscient and omnipotent* programmer.

* Ok, maybe not ;).

I think you may have confused Presbyterianism with Protestantism. The former being a subset of the latter....oh and also...the IO monad kinda throws that off, doesn't it :-P

I guess that I used the Dutch categorization ;).

...uh... aren't programming languages religions already?

+1 for the reference of LISP and Zen.

As a daily practitioner of sitting (Zazen) and walking meditation (Kinhin), I earn my money with Python and Ruby. But these days, I learn Clojure and feel myself closer to the truth with every step I take.

I think the point of Zen is that Python and Ruby are also truth ;).

When he came to the sentence, "One should use one's mind in such a way that it will be free from any attachment, " I at once became thoroughly enlightened, and realized that all things in the universe are the Essence of Mind itself. ~ The Platform Sutra

I did not state the opposite. Only that in LISP I can see the truth more clearly.

Obviously I love Python and Ruby - if only for their clean conciseness.

Macro-like languages (WordBasic comes to mind) are the "omigod please god get me out of this mess!" prayers - usually used in times of stress or need, deployed quickly and messily, and forgotten until needed again.

I am disappointed that they left off Javascript. Not that I ultimately care what religion would be analogous to JS, but it was an entertaining read and accurate on a lot of counts.

What religion would JS be closest to?

Old Norse Paganism. The entire world is created by altering a skull, and the waters around the world are fraught with dragons.

Unitarian Universalism.

Often mistaken for Java/Christianity, from which it takes many superficial elements, but opposite in philosophy. You can do just about anything in it. Many critics call this a bad thing.

My favourite suggestions from the comments:

JavaScript would be Seventh Day Adventism. Though it portrays itself as a mild-mannered flock of Christianity, it plays a secret role in the ultimate worldwide armageddon. Those who casually 'browse' will ultimately burn, when JavaScript is enabled. (anon)

JavaScript is Alcholism - the more you do it, the more it rots your brain as you realize that functions are objects, your prototypes are polluting namespaces, and you just can't seem to get any closure. (Kevin Hutchinson)

in that case I must learn me some C++

cthullu worsip is ?

SQL, REX, MUMPS, dos bat

Cthulhuism: is MS-DOS Batch scripting. It's a similar notion to Satanism. Some argue that it precedes Satanism but, in truth, it's more obscure and just weirder.

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