I was developing mostly PHP, some bash, some Java and kinda liked ruby but could only partially feel it.
Until I read "why's (poignant) Guide to Ruby", from start to end, I completely fell in love with programming. Everything before was just getting to this point.
The documentation and community is what has drawn me into Ruby. The language and now very major ecosystem is why I still stay :)
Hello Ruby by Linda Luikas is one of the sweetest 'programming books' I've ever seen.
Aside from being cute, and maybe harking back to why’s guide; I like how this feels like it aids in understanding. Each illustration provides character that helps aid in memorizing or creating a mental landscape of the exceptions.
Theres probably a lot of documentation that could be aided by illustrations like this along the lines of analogy and metaphor. Aside from making the process of reading documentation more fun, it probably helps differentiate long and complex documentation that otherwise might blur together.
I don't appreciate how it seems like an elaborate ad though: Every error has a link to the paid service they're selling , with the error/exception "Enemies" list as their product
On the contrary, I quite like how it's a very elaborate and useful ad. The link to the paid service is very discreet and the website provides real and free educational value even if you don't use their service.
Why so? This is in my book the best form of advertising. It provides anyway something useful for the interested reader, while exposing the (alleged, at least) usefulness of their services. Much better this that a banner or a pop-up in some random website that tracked you down as a Ruby developer.
15 years ago I would have agreed. Today, Python is a "gateway" to programming that is also the real thing.
It's like one of those old languages designed for beginners to learn coding... and then you can continue to use the same language for your entire professional career as a software engineer, to build just about any production-ready application.
Ruby is a beautiful language, but unless you are going to be working with Rails, it's not a very practical language to build something in. And I don't think telling a beginner "just learn Ruby for now, but once you're actually ready to write your first useful program, you're probably going to have to learn another language" is very motivating.
'If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood or assign them tasks and work. Instead, teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.'
This resonates with how I feel about programming languages. Python might be more practical, but does it ignite a passion for coding like Ruby has historically done? I remember dabbling in Python, Perl, and JavaScript (ES5) back in high school, but it wasn't until I rediscovered programming through Ruby that I truly began to enjoy it.
Nowadays, I might not default to Ruby for new projects, having moved on to OCaml and Elixir, among others. Yet, there's something about Ruby's community (its charm and gentleness,) that's missing in many others. This nurturing environment is invaluable for beginners. It's noteworthy how members of the Ruby community, like José Valim with Elixir, Yehuda Katz with Ember.js and Rust, and Chris McCord with Phoenix, have carried this spirit of playfulness and a deep care for developer experience into other communities they've joined.
When I was young, and I had zero experience with programming, I was more comfortable with Ruby rather Python because:
1. significant whitespace was so hard to grasp. I was a beginner so I just needed to write awful code
2. Ruby was so "pure" from the OOP perspective that I had one thing less to think about: method calls start from object instances, period. Python has "exceptions" to this rule that made me confused (f.e. `len` in Python is a global function, while in Ruby is `array.length`)
3. I found Ruby matching more to English language
Later I found that Ruby has deeply obscure islands (metaprogramming mainly, but also exotic syntax coming from Perl), but I was already sold to the language
I never 'learned' python and ruby is the path I went with and still use for 90% of my own software.
However Python is a easy transition. I rarely struggle to do anything with it when I need it. Even Django wasn't to weird to grasp after years of rails.
IMO it's not to relevant which language you choose to learn in the beginning of your career. Whatever is more fun or works better for your interests.
The biggest difference between both is mainly their machine learning story but if you don't intend to go in it (this is a very specific career choice), I'd say both are equally good options.
I'd say both are pretty bad at performance critical tasks or UI stuff where usually you would use neither of those.
"not a very practical language to build something in"
You mean something like Shopify, Stripe or Github? So switch to Python instead so you can be constrained by single-line lambdas and a runtime that performs almost exactly the same as Ruby?
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Until I read "why's (poignant) Guide to Ruby", from start to end, I completely fell in love with programming. Everything before was just getting to this point.
The documentation and community is what has drawn me into Ruby. The language and now very major ecosystem is why I still stay :)
Hello Ruby by Linda Luikas is one of the sweetest 'programming books' I've ever seen.
Theres probably a lot of documentation that could be aided by illustrations like this along the lines of analogy and metaphor. Aside from making the process of reading documentation more fun, it probably helps differentiate long and complex documentation that otherwise might blur together.
15 years ago I would have agreed. Today, Python is a "gateway" to programming that is also the real thing.
It's like one of those old languages designed for beginners to learn coding... and then you can continue to use the same language for your entire professional career as a software engineer, to build just about any production-ready application.
Ruby is a beautiful language, but unless you are going to be working with Rails, it's not a very practical language to build something in. And I don't think telling a beginner "just learn Ruby for now, but once you're actually ready to write your first useful program, you're probably going to have to learn another language" is very motivating.
Nowadays, I might not default to Ruby for new projects, having moved on to OCaml and Elixir, among others. Yet, there's something about Ruby's community (its charm and gentleness,) that's missing in many others. This nurturing environment is invaluable for beginners. It's noteworthy how members of the Ruby community, like José Valim with Elixir, Yehuda Katz with Ember.js and Rust, and Chris McCord with Phoenix, have carried this spirit of playfulness and a deep care for developer experience into other communities they've joined.
1. significant whitespace was so hard to grasp. I was a beginner so I just needed to write awful code
2. Ruby was so "pure" from the OOP perspective that I had one thing less to think about: method calls start from object instances, period. Python has "exceptions" to this rule that made me confused (f.e. `len` in Python is a global function, while in Ruby is `array.length`)
3. I found Ruby matching more to English language
Later I found that Ruby has deeply obscure islands (metaprogramming mainly, but also exotic syntax coming from Perl), but I was already sold to the language
However Python is a easy transition. I rarely struggle to do anything with it when I need it. Even Django wasn't to weird to grasp after years of rails.
IMO it's not to relevant which language you choose to learn in the beginning of your career. Whatever is more fun or works better for your interests.
I'd say both are pretty bad at performance critical tasks or UI stuff where usually you would use neither of those.
You mean something like Shopify, Stripe or Github? So switch to Python instead so you can be constrained by single-line lambdas and a runtime that performs almost exactly the same as Ruby?
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