Comments on: A subjective comparison between Perl and Ruby http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2008/02/01/a-subjective-comparison-between-perl-and-ruby/ Eli Bendersky's personal website Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:01:46 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 By: Jenda http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2008/02/01/a-subjective-comparison-between-perl-and-ruby/#comment-122402 Jenda Fri, 13 Jun 2008 12:45:56 +0000 http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2008/02/01/a-subjective-comparison-between-perl-and-ruby/#comment-122402 Textile markup language? That's a pretty bad example if you ask me. Let's see, what the heck is "Textile markup language", google, wikipedia ... aaaaah, yet another of the thousands simplified markup languages used originaly by some blogging or forum software. Now, how's that new technology? This particular markup was first implemented in PHP ... well since it was part of some PHP forum, it's no big surprise. Then it was implemented in Ruby ... I guess someone wrote his/her own forum and wanted to use the same syntax. And only then, long after, someone implemented this particular syntax in Perl ... I guess it was the first time someone wrote a new forum from scratch and was looking for a syntax to support. Textile markup language? That’s a pretty bad example if you ask me. Let’s see, what the heck is “Textile markup language”, google, wikipedia … aaaaah, yet another of the thousands simplified markup languages used originaly by some blogging or forum software. Now, how’s that new technology? This particular markup was first implemented in PHP … well since it was part of some PHP forum, it’s no big surprise. Then it was implemented in Ruby … I guess someone wrote his/her own forum and wanted to use the same syntax. And only then, long after, someone implemented this particular syntax in Perl … I guess it was the first time someone wrote a new forum from scratch and was looking for a syntax to support.

]]> By: ripper234 http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2008/02/01/a-subjective-comparison-between-perl-and-ruby/#comment-121072 ripper234 Tue, 13 May 2008 17:23:32 +0000 http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2008/02/01/a-subjective-comparison-between-perl-and-ruby/#comment-121072 "When you need high performance, you’ll have to resort to C/C++, and both Perl and Ruby have good bindings for these languages." Not really relevant to the most of the article, but I've seen several projects aimed at high performence not choose C/C++. Java and C# are more then up to the performance tasks, except maybe for realtime programming. “When you need high performance, you’ll have to resort to C/C++, and both Perl and Ruby have good bindings for these languages.”

Not really relevant to the most of the article, but I’ve seen several projects aimed at high performence not choose C/C++.

Java and C# are more then up to the performance tasks, except maybe for realtime programming.

]]> By: cato http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2008/02/01/a-subjective-comparison-between-perl-and-ruby/#comment-121059 cato Tue, 13 May 2008 10:21:59 +0000 http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2008/02/01/a-subjective-comparison-between-perl-and-ruby/#comment-121059 Well, sometimes you can improve Ruby performancewise - a bit! Sieve of Eratosthenes in Ruby http://snippets.dzone.com/posts/show/3734 Well, sometimes you can improve Ruby performancewise - a bit!

Sieve of Eratosthenes in Ruby

http://snippets.dzone.com/posts/show/3734

]]> By: Alexandr Ciornii http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2008/02/01/a-subjective-comparison-between-perl-and-ruby/#comment-116768 Alexandr Ciornii Sat, 22 Mar 2008 14:46:39 +0000 http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2008/02/01/a-subjective-comparison-between-perl-and-ruby/#comment-116768 what do you think about Catalyst and CGI::Application? what do you think about Catalyst and CGI::Application?

]]> By: chromatic http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2008/02/01/a-subjective-comparison-between-perl-and-ruby/#comment-105321 chromatic Sun, 03 Feb 2008 06:45:14 +0000 http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2008/02/01/a-subjective-comparison-between-perl-and-ruby/#comment-105321 Heh. Python's not faster than Perl in many benchmarks I've seen, its user base is smaller than Perl's in every measure I've seen, and it doesn't have lots of libraries compared to the CPAN. I suppose if you like it despite that, it's a fine language... but I've never heard any of those put forward as serious advantages of Python if you look at the evidence. Heh. Python’s not faster than Perl in many benchmarks I’ve seen, its user base is smaller than Perl’s in every measure I’ve seen, and it doesn’t have lots of libraries compared to the CPAN. I suppose if you like it despite that, it’s a fine language… but I’ve never heard any of those put forward as serious advantages of Python if you look at the evidence.

]]> By: 3legcat http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2008/02/01/a-subjective-comparison-between-perl-and-ruby/#comment-105203 3legcat Sun, 03 Feb 2008 04:08:06 +0000 http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2008/02/01/a-subjective-comparison-between-perl-and-ruby/#comment-105203 Why not Python? It's nice to work with, mature with a large user base and lots of libraries, interfaces easily with C/C++ and is also faster then either Perl and Ruby. More importantly, there's are a lot of energy and momentum behind it. That's a lot like the younger employee you described in your blog entry. Why not Python? It’s nice to work with, mature with a large user base and lots of libraries, interfaces easily with C/C++ and is also faster then either Perl and Ruby. More importantly, there’s are a lot of energy and momentum behind it. That’s a lot like the younger employee you described in your blog entry.

]]> By: crayz http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2008/02/01/a-subjective-comparison-between-perl-and-ruby/#comment-104994 crayz Sat, 02 Feb 2008 19:29:35 +0000 http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2008/02/01/a-subjective-comparison-between-perl-and-ruby/#comment-104994 Try Hpricot for XML parsing, prefer it to REXML Try Hpricot for XML parsing, prefer it to REXML

]]> By: Matt S Trout http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2008/02/01/a-subjective-comparison-between-perl-and-ruby/#comment-104958 Matt S Trout Sat, 02 Feb 2008 17:47:03 +0000 http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2008/02/01/a-subjective-comparison-between-perl-and-ruby/#comment-104958 Actually, perl6 stopped slowing perl5 down about three years ago, when the perl5 community went "right, we're bored now" and went into overdrive adding new stuff on CPAN. The core interpreter is being developed slowly, certainly, but that's because we don't -need- it to add features. For example - - The <a href="http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?Moose" rel="nofollow">Moose</a> meta-protocol and object orientation syntax entension library provides a full metaprotocol, a roles system, introspection, nice syntax, CLOS-style method modifiers and still handles multiple inheritance too - As far as exceptions go, <a href="http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?Exception::Class" rel="nofollow">Exception::Class</a> is getting steadily more popular and provides nice sugar that still fits in with the perlish style - Markdown support is getting back on track - Tomas Doran is fixing up Text::Markdown -and- Text::MultiMarkdown, scraping every test he can find and passing them in between adding freatures - And as for DSLs, well ruby's "look I can call a method without parens" doesn't really excite me - for declarative syntax <a>Object::Declare</a> by Audrey Tang does rather well and there's work in hand to be able to add new <i>language keywords</i> without source filters - see <a>Method::Signatures</a> for a bleeding edge but working example And all of these things work as far back as perl 5.8.1 - which is why none of us really worried about how long 5.10 took. We're also attracting new developers at a reasonable rate - I'm 24 and quite a few of my community co-conspirators are younger. Perl's not dead by a long shot, we're just not so into loud self-promotion when there's working code to be written ... Actually, perl6 stopped slowing perl5 down about three years ago, when the perl5 community went “right, we’re bored now” and went into overdrive adding new stuff on CPAN. The core interpreter is being developed slowly, certainly, but that’s because we don’t -need- it to add features.

For example -

- The Moose meta-protocol and object orientation syntax entension library provides a full metaprotocol, a roles system, introspection, nice syntax, CLOS-style method modifiers and still handles multiple inheritance too
- As far as exceptions go, Exception::Class is getting steadily more popular and provides nice sugar that still fits in with the perlish style
- Markdown support is getting back on track - Tomas Doran is fixing up Text::Markdown -and- Text::MultiMarkdown, scraping every test he can find and passing them in between adding freatures
- And as for DSLs, well ruby’s “look I can call a method without parens” doesn’t really excite me - for declarative syntax Object::Declare by Audrey Tang does rather well and there’s work in hand to be able to add new language keywords without source filters - see Method::Signatures for a bleeding edge but working example

And all of these things work as far back as perl 5.8.1 - which is why none of us really worried about how long 5.10 took. We’re also attracting new developers at a reasonable rate - I’m 24 and quite a few of my community co-conspirators are younger. Perl’s not dead by a long shot, we’re just not so into loud self-promotion when there’s working code to be written …

]]> By: tomas http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2008/02/01/a-subjective-comparison-between-perl-and-ruby/#comment-104898 tomas Sat, 02 Feb 2008 15:52:08 +0000 http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2008/02/01/a-subjective-comparison-between-perl-and-ruby/#comment-104898 For/on windows i use ruby-gtk / ruby-gnome It works and looks much better than tk IMHO :) For/on windows i use ruby-gtk / ruby-gnome

It works and looks much better than tk IMHO :)

]]> By: eliben http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2008/02/01/a-subjective-comparison-between-perl-and-ruby/#comment-104728 eliben Sat, 02 Feb 2008 08:03:19 +0000 http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2008/02/01/a-subjective-comparison-between-perl-and-ruby/#comment-104728 matthew: There's Inline::C for simple uses. Also, I find the bindings to Win32 DLLs (Win32::API in Perl and Win32API in Ruby) easy to use when you don't need a tight integration. Isaac Gouy: thanks for the tip, I'll link to it. chromatic: I meant <i>stagnant</i> in the sense of popularity. CPAN will probably keep growing anyway. And enterprise support is very important IMHO - it gets smart people to work on improving these languages full-time, with pay. Imagine what happens if a few talented hackers will now be getting paid for working on Perl 6 full time. How long will it take to finish ? And Rails' donation to this interest isn't very relevant, as long as the interest exist. Rails came to the market in the very right time - when people needed to develop dynamic websites and got with with PHP's ugliness. matthew: There’s Inline::C for simple uses. Also, I find the bindings to Win32 DLLs (Win32::API in Perl and Win32API in Ruby) easy to use when you don’t need a tight integration.

Isaac Gouy: thanks for the tip, I’ll link to it.

chromatic: I meant stagnant in the sense of popularity. CPAN will probably keep growing anyway. And enterprise support is very important IMHO - it gets smart people to work on improving these languages full-time, with pay. Imagine what happens if a few talented hackers will now be getting paid for working on Perl 6 full time. How long will it take to finish ?
And Rails’ donation to this interest isn’t very relevant, as long as the interest exist. Rails came to the market in the very right time - when people needed to develop dynamic websites and got with with PHP’s ugliness.

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