[pmontra]

Or, in a different language

  open("file", "r").readlines.
    map{|line| line.strip}.
    filter{|line| line != ""}

or some smarter but less readable ways.

I prefer the left-to-right transformations style to Python's list comprehension and inside-to-outside function composition. The reason is that it reminds me of how data flow into *nix pipelines. I spent decades working with them and I've been working with Ruby for the last half of that time. With Python in the last quarter of my career.

It's a matter of choices and preferences of the original designed of the language. Both ways work.