Page 2 - Ruby vs Other scripting languages

nm i dont know what im posting.. im just sleeping.. going home now!!

Are you printing from the controller? I almost never do that. Do you do that ... a lot?

i thought you had to do that in catalyst?

*shrugs*

I have the vast majority of my output handled by a view using TT templates similar to RHTML pages. The only time I print from the controller is when doing very small / simple AJAX responses such as auto_complete. Even if I was using RoR, I'd want to avoid printing from the controller since the output is supposed to be managed by the view in MVC.

I'm not a Perl fan in the least and for the most part it seems like a hack over a hack over a hack so the perly option isn't really for me. I personally find Ruby to be very clear and concise, and more flexible and standardized than Python in a lot of ways, which seems to get uglier all the time.

I don't think it's even worth going into detail comparing Ruby to PHP there's just no competition, Ruby wins .

It's text manipulation is equal to perls though it's has already been mentioned that perls libs make it far faster to develop anything substantial, not surprising if all the work is done for you and you're just plugging bits together – I'm not comparing RoR etc. I haven't used them .

That said they are impressive frameworks; since they're all pretty much in the same class as to what they can do though It really comes down to the language you choose.

Personally: another win for Ruby is that it's feature set is quite compatible with my favorite language [Lisp] so that also makes it all the more attractive in my eyes .

My $2,

Mark.

Some of Perl's advantages and disadvantages stem from it's pioneering role as a popular scripting language, at least in the set of scripting languages that are commonly compared. Because it was popular earlier than the rest, it experimented with a lot of features, some were good and others were mistakes. It has that baggage. Python and Ruby can look at Perl's experiences and avoid those mistakes. Of course, there are always new mistakes to be made.

I'm sorry to hear that Python is devolving, at least in your opinion. Checking out TurboGears and Python is on my list. Hopefully the same fate won't befall Ruby. After participating in this thread, I'm hoping that RoR apps with lots of puts statements in their controllers are the exception, not the rule. IMHO, that would defeat the entire purpose of RoR and MVC.Plugging bits together in Perl does get you a workable infrastructure with a lot of capability fast but that's just the beginning of the project, not the end. Pre-built and tested libraries let you concentrate on the substantial, value-add parts of the project instead of commodity technology that many apps already seem to have and take for granted. It helps level the playing field against established players that have developed their own proprietary libraries over time.If that was true, I might be using Ruby and Ruby on Rails. Ruby on Rails is a very constrained environment and only lets you work in one way, "The Ruby Way." For an example, see my post on RoR and raw SQL. Basically The Ruby Way is incompatible with the PostgreSQL and Oracle ways, and I imagine the more advanced MySQL way. In one conversation, Ruby on Rails vs. Catalyst was compared to Duplo vs. Technic Lego. They both let you build apps but one gives you large building blocks with few options while the other gives you many different blocks and options. So while the major frameworks are impressive, they are not the same in their philosopy or capabilities. If it was just capabilities, I can imagine RoR catching up, but RoR's philosophy is to be constrained while Catalyst's philosophy is to be flexible. If I was choosing based solely on language, Ruby would be a strong contender, but the frameworks, however similar, are not designed to be equal as you suggest. I wish RoR was more flexible but perhaps it's targeted towards different users and projects, ones that don't need sophistication in their DB, etc.

This difference in philosophy is also partly due to the history of both languages. Ruby and Ruby on Rails are relatively new in terms of popularity so most people can be convinced to do things The Ruby Way. Perl has a large, existing community already building large apps using different components that Catalyst caters to. The nice thing is that we have a choice.

I can think of many projects where Ruby and Ruby on Rails would be ideal, they just don't happen to be the projects I work on, unfortunate as that is.We're only worth $2? How about some pounds sterling

Heh, perl's main problem IMO is the @_ being overused

For function parameters, it should use variables and allow variable length arrays etc....

if ruby had CPAN, few would use perl. Rails is a bit limiting, something like catalyst is needed. Heh, maybe i should just get my universal interpreter working

Oh and you better watch currency exchange fees

from a programming language p.o.v (forgetting that python has better libraries, ignoring whatever web app framework is popular this week) some of the reasons I like ruby are it's coherence - it was conceived as OO through and through and has lispy/smalltalk-like features running through it, like lexical closures, blocks passed as params to methods, higher order functions and support for functional programming. Those language features are there to one degree or another in other languages but they are bolted on as syntactic sugar (even when they've been there from very early on), without that much conceptual committment. Python is a lot less consistent/coherent (beginners need to guess whether some methods will be a built-in or a method of some object) and that makes me feel less comfortable using it. As others have said, beginners should be strongly discouraged from using things like perl/php as they will definitely pick up bad habits straight away, in fact bad habits are 'best practice' some of the time.