What's better about Ruby than Python? - comp.lang.python
The title made me nervous that this would be run-of-the-mill fanboy garbage. But I trust the author (Alex Martelli), so I read it, and I'm glad I did. It's reasonable and sane.<p>My two big take-away points:<p>1) It's very nearly a wash. Ruby and Python are so close together (beneath any superficial differences) that distinguishing is <i>almost</i> an exercise in futility.<p>2) The key thing about Ruby he doesn't like is its "TOTAL, unbridled "dynamicity", including the ability to "reopen" any existing class, including all built-in ones, and change its behavior at run-time." To M's way of thinking, this makes Ruby less "suited for use in large production 
applications" and more suited for "tinkering."<p>I don't buy the argument myself, but I will admit that when I first started learning about Ruby, everything I read went on and on about how cool it was that you could open everything up and play. But as I read more, I discovered that the community seems pretty heavily tilted against monkey-patching now. (I may be wrong about this, but it's my impression.) I don't think that means Ruby is for tinkering only, but it does suggest that Martelli's concern is legitimate.<p>He also offers some nice pasta recipes along the way. (So much so, that now I'm hungry.)