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When you say "win", are you meaning in the sense of "there can only be one"?

Why limit the discussion to Python and Ruby? Why not include PHP, say? Why have Python and Ruby "lost" to PHP? What about C++, Java and C#?

I wanted to understand the factors that led to a particular outcome: Python becoming the de-facto winner for scripting applications.

I compared to Ruby, because that's the language I would choose for scripting, based on the ability to create nice internal DSLs.