[schappim]

What looks like stagnation to Steen is actually [1] Matz’s remarkable foresight that provided stability and developer happiness.

Steen’s not wrong that Python evolved and Ruby moved slower, but he’s wrong to call Ruby stagnant or irrelevant. Just think what we've enjoyed in recent times: YJIT and MJIT massively improved runtime performance, ractors, the various type system efforts (RBS/Sorbet etc) that give gradual typing without cluttering the language etc.

Ruby’s priorities (ergonomics, DSLs, stability) are different[2] from Python’s (standardisation, academia/data). It’s a matter of taste and domain, not superiority.

[1] I'm stealing a point DHH made on Lex's podcast. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vagyIcmIGOQ

[2] I'm once again parroting DHH/Matz

[drob518]

My reaction to that part of the post was, “Well, it seems like Python needed to evolve while Ruby was better-designed from the beginning. That’s a failing of Python, not of Ruby.” Language stability is a good thing, which is why I prefer Clojure myself. I know enough Python and Ruby to be dangerous. I’m certainly no expert in either one. That said, Python always struck me as a bit of a hack, but people seemed to resonate with the “indentation is significant” syntax, whereas Ruby felt like it was better designed, taking “everything is an object” to its natural conclusion, similar to Smalltalk, but suffering from performance issues because that means lots of more heavyweight message dispatch.