On Ruby

Tim Bray is learning Ruby and liking it:

For people like me, who are proficient in Perl and Java, Ruby is remarkably, perhaps irresistibly, attractive.

And then he sneaks in this aside regarding Python and code readability:

In theory, Python ought to do better, lacking all those silly end statements cluttering up the screen. But in practice, when I look at Python code I find my eyes distracted by a barrage of underscores and double-quote marks. Typography is an important component of human communication, and Ruby’s, on balance, is cleaner.

Now that I think about, those underscores and extra quotes are exactly why Python does not appeal to me. I find Python’s indentation-as-block rule to be quite elegant, but its use of punctuation feels clumsy.

★ Monday, 24 July 2006