Ruby on Rails Love-In

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Cavern of COBOL > Ruby on Rails Love-In

syntaxrigger: Jul 7, 2011; Actually you owe me 6! But who's countin?

To sort of piggy back off of Fat Whale's question, if I really wanted to learn a scripting language as well as web development, which is a better suggestion: Ruby or python? I am coming from a java background.

I keep going back and forth on this issue and I really have no idea how to solve the problem. My working solution right now is to learn both, starting with Ruby, and then make a decision.

My primary concerns are a path that will develop me into a better programmer and to be as marketable as possible.

syntaxrigger fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Mar 1, 2012

# ¿ Mar 1, 2012 18:31

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syntaxrigger: Jul 7, 2011; Actually you owe me 6! But who's countin?

Look Around You posted:

I don't know much about marketing yourself, but in terms of being a better programmer, it probably won't matter all that much in the end. New languages aren't hard to pick up as long as they're within roughly the same paradigm.

It should be pretty trivial to pick up Ruby and Python coming from Java (all three are Object Oriented); you'll just have to learn some of the differences, mainly dynamic typing.

To compare Ruby and Python though: Ruby has more of an emphasis on blocks and closures, and is better for implementing domain specific languages. It also allows for multiple ways to do something and tends to not emphasize one way, a philosophy coming from Perl. Python on the other hand places more emphasis on standard forms, where if you have a problem usually there is really only one way that you "should" solve it. A term you'll hear a lot is "Pythonic", which boils down to following the philosophy of the language and being the generally accepted way of doing things.

That being said, if you want to really make yourself a "better" programmer, I'd recommend learning a functional language like Haskell or Lisp. They're really awesome languages in general, and functional programming is a good way to get a better grasp of recursion (especially considering that you don't really have loops at all!). It's also just good to step out of your comfort zone sometimes. A good book for learning Haskell is Learn You a Haskell for Great Good by fellow goon Bonus. Lisp has a couple good books too, notably SICP and How to Design Programs, which is sort of SICP lite.

I messed around with Lisp in college and have a passing knowledge of recursion. I guess my main focus is to learn web development as I feel it is a major part of programming that I am missing.

So the goal is to educate myself on web dev while learning a scripting language heavily tied to web dev.

I would say the big obstacle that I continually struggle with is the fear that I will "waste time" by "hitching my cart to the wrong horse". As I feel I have started my career in programming late, i.e. I am 29 and a year out of college and I only started programming when I got to college. Maybe this is probably an irrational fear, I dunno.

Feel like I need some sort of mentor, anyways rambling, thanks for the input

# ¿ Mar 2, 2012 15:57

syntaxrigger: Jul 7, 2011; Actually you owe me 6! But who's countin?

Kim Jong III posted:

Seconding the "don't worry about it" regarding Python v/Ruby. I started programming in PHP and Java, bounced to Python, and is now a Ruby dev. It's no big deal. From what I've seen good companies want good programmers, and mediocre companies only want {Java, Ruby, PHP, ...} programmers.

One thing you might want to look at is what's in demand in your area, especially if you're not in a major technology area like SF or NYC or whatever. Be sure to ask around, not just rely on job postings. I know some people have really negative opinions of recruiters, but I've found them invaluable in figuring out what skills you really need.

For example, almost all of my area's published job listings want ASP.NET programmers. But every recruiter I spoke with said that those jobs, and consequently those programmers, are dime a dozen in this area. But there are a ton of jobs in this area for Ruby developers that go unfilled because everyone's too busy with .NET.

At the end of the day, don't stress too much about what language to learn, because that's such a small part of programming. And IMO, I wouldn't look for jobs at companies that put too much focus on what languages you know.

Cool, thanks for this. I am in the dallas area, hoping to be able to move to Austin eventually. I think I might drop a line to the one recruiter I have on my linked in and see what he says about "valuable skills" in the austin area.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2012 17:40

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