Next Language, Python or Ruby

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psurrena
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Next Language, Python or Ruby

Post by psurrena »

I done a good bit of development in PHP over the last two years and, surprisingly, really enjoy it. I'm a designer and the concept, at first, was out there. I later found the concepts were the same, just abstracted.

To get a better understanding of PHP I thought I should start learning another language. Maybe a concept I don't get in PHP, I would in another language. In addition, I just enjoy learning these things.

I'm not so interested in frameworks (ROR, Django), I'd rather get a solid foundation right now. So that aside what would people here recommend as the next step? Python or Ruby?

Thanks in advance.
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feyd
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Post by feyd »

Personally, I'd say Python, but both have their merits. You could easily look at the foundations of both in a week and decide later. :)
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psurrena
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Post by psurrena »

Is it true that you can write Python apps for almost any platform (web, home computer, phone, gadget)? Same for Ruby?
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onion2k
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Post by onion2k »

You can run Python and Ruby on any platform that there's a Python or Ruby interpreter. Same as PHP.

In order to improve your PHP you should really carry on with PHP rather than trying to learn a completely different way of doing things. Both Python and Ruby are very strongly object oriented - you're not going to be able to use what you get from those languages in a PHP script because PHP's object orientation is a bit weak in comparison. That said, of the two options I'd recommend Python, it's a more useful language. There are some incredible libraries available. Beautiful Soup for example.
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Luke
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Post by Luke »

I love python. :) I agree with onion about PHP compared to python and ruby, but I disagree that you should stick with just PHP. Learning python has made me a better PHP programmer. I have not done much with Ruby but it looks pretty solid. Syntactically I think they're pretty similar. Django is pretty neato also.
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psurrena
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Post by psurrena »

Thanks everyone, I will start looking at Python in the near future.
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psurrena
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Post by psurrena »

One more question, can anyone suggest some sites / tutorials for using Python to build websites?
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Ollie Saunders
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Post by Ollie Saunders »

onion2k wrote:I'd recommend Python, it's a more useful language.
Are you going to explain why or are we supposed to just accept your opinion without question?
Thanks everyone, I will start looking at Python in the near future.
Oh.. apparently we are! /me chuckles
There are some incredible libraries available. Beautiful Soup for example.
I do like soup...I usually have a piece of bread to dip it whilst it's too hot to eat with a spoon.

Personally I think Ruby is amazing but then I know nothing about Python so it could be just as good. I have read some criticisms of Python, general inconsistencies/annoyances, I can't remember the article now. I haven't really heard anything bad about Ruby, at all. Hmm that's quite remarkable really, maybe I'm falling into a belief system. *shudder*
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psurrena
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Post by psurrena »

Ole, you didn't do any better job explaining...python it is.
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Ollie Saunders
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Post by Ollie Saunders »

No I didn't because I don't know anything about Python, and I couldn't be bothered....well mainly because I couldn't be bothered. I still think you should look into both. I should probably look into Python, nah, can't be bothered.
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s.dot
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Post by s.dot »

google's pretty fond of python, so python!
Set Search Time - A google chrome extension. When you search only results from the past year (or set time period) are displayed. Helps tremendously when using new technologies to avoid outdated results.
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RobertGonzalez
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Post by RobertGonzalez »

Hell with it. Learn both. And learn C++ while you are at it. And if you haven't gotten them done yet, learn ColdFusion and .NET at the same time.
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Kieran Huggins
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Post by Kieran Huggins »

Ruby is hawt... and has more of a rockstar-esque job market at the moment.

Ole and I will report back from all the sexy Ruby parties while y'all debate Star Wars trivia with the python folks :twisted:
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Ollie Saunders
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Post by Ollie Saunders »

That I most certainly will
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anjanesh
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Post by anjanesh »

scottayy wrote:google's pretty fond of python, so python!
python's inventor, Guido van Rossum has been a google employee since 2005.

Havent checked Ruby so far, the talk on it has been all abt the Rails framework, hardly come across any non-RoR stuff.

Python is very flexible. Moreover, it has one thing that others have dropped - multiple inheritance.
Sad thing is, theres no support for private class members (some workaround with leading double underscores exist, but not concrete).
I would use python for intensive tasks that need to be run as a cron or in shell for background purposes.
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