> I’ll never understand how Python became the more widely appreciated language
IMO syntax is a major factor. Python looks like pseudocode, while Ruby looks like Perl.
IMO syntax is a major factor. Python looks like pseudocode, while Ruby looks like Perl.
I don't think I've ever seen a popular Rubygem with dense, nasty, Perl-like code.
That sort of style may have been more prevalent in the early days of Ruby, which I'm roughly defining as the days before Rails.
Regardless, I’ve always thought that Ruby is more like pseudocode because with Ruby, I’m able to worry less about syntax and more about what I’m trying to do. Maybe it’s just me?
I used to think it was significant indentation, but if you look at the pseudocode on e.g. Wikipedia, there is no significant preference for either whitespace or begin/end.
Therefore, it’s probably things like `if value in my_map` vs `if my_map.contains(value)` and `[x * 2 for x in my_list]` vs `my_list.map(x -> x * 2)`.
- `if my_map.contains(value)` is nice and consistent, easy to search for the code of the .contains method and figure out what it does
- `[x * 2 for x in my_list]` another ugly special case syntax, instead of general purpose higher order functions, even in Python while a `.map` method could've been easily added to dictionaries too, we had to wait years (decades?) for dictionary comprehensions to land in the language, and it's another damn special syntax one has to remember. ugh! - a sane solution not involving higher order functions usage would've been to make everything in the language an expression and have `for ...` expressions return lists or dictionaries or sets, still better than the fugly "list comprehension", I really can't comprehend why people like them
- `my_list.map(x -> x * 2)` nice, clean, and general. If I work with a weirder list like thingy and want to see the logic of mapping, I can easily jump to the definition of it's `.map` method
Most pseudocode is ugly and ambiguous and actually hard to read without special context from the text around it because you're never sure what something actually means, can't easily "jump to its implementation code and read it". Same like natural language, hard to non-ambiguously understand and ugly as hell in technical context where math and diagrams work 1000x times better.
I can't understand why people who are trained in math, physics and/or other sciences would ever choose something just because it "looks more like pseudocode"... To me pseudocode rhymes with... pseudoscience! It's never what you want when you can choose something better.
Also I think the mantra of "developer happiness is the #1 goal of ruby" kind of makes ruby seem a bit more fanciful and flowery than python.
These are just my personal anecdotes, though, I am assuming that most people (myself included) start eyeing seemingly superficial things like the attitude of the language author when a lot of other qualities of the language are similar.
At first I rebelled against not having unnamed closures, but then you hit the first problem in a complex case, and the backtrace having sane names suddenly makes it all more than worth it.