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Should I learn Python, Perl or Ruby?

10 points by netbyte ↗ HN
People say don't use Ruby because of the small community outside of the web and others say don't use Perl because it's "old." I don't really like the syntax or Python that much(I know I know). Which would be the best choice for simple scripts, and to eventually move on to bigger projects.

29 comments

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gamechangr
Ruby on Rails---------(then Python,-------- then Perl)

Ruby is easier to pick up with a much more active community. It really depends what you want to build:

Python- If you need to build a site quickly that is mostly information based such as a blog or some kind of editorial site. I'd choose python with django. The automatic admin section is great for this type of task.

Ruby- If you need to build something with a lot of popular features (twitter, mash ups, simple shopping carts, etc..) and don't have time to really learn every little detail. Ruby using Rails might be a good solution as there are thousands of demo and live applications out there to borrow from. Should reduce your development time.

I throw out an line of demarkation....For example comparing the ways that Python and Ruby address Meta-programming, I think, will illuminate which for you is more interesting (which fits your brain better)

I use Ruby on Rails the most.

In the end...learn them all.

Shadaloo
It depends on your philosophical bent.
pilot_pirx
for simple scripts: doesn't matter

for larger projects: depends on project

netbyte
Website scraping, simple websites, execute tasks quickly from the Desktop
martharotter
Sites like Scraperwiki work great with Python, PHP and Ruby. Take a look at their examples and see which ones make the most sense to you.
easonchan42
both python and ruby is easy to start and powerful, so just pick one you like.

As me, I learn python first as my scripting tool(web scraping, system automate task).

Then I switch to ruby,it have some suger for you to write less code to complete same task.

glimcat
Larger projects: for each, does the code available or the language features make it a substantially smaller project than it would be otherwise? Also, what gives the lowest difficulty to maintain?
[deleted]
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ohgodthecat
Pick Python or Ruby and just go with it they both are pretty similar.

Perl is fine too but python and ruby are going to be a bit easier to do webby things with them (in regards to getting started).

manuscreationis
If you have a negative outlook on all 3, why not find a language that you do like, and start from there?

I think one of the easiest things to learn (the basics, not the fine intricacies) right now, thanks to the explosion of web technologies, is Javascript. You already have an environment to run it in (any browser), and if you actually like it, you can advance to something like Node (ignore the hyperbole around both it's magical properties and it's carcinogens) to write "bigger" projects in.

But overall, take pilot_pirxs' advice. He is spot on.

pfraze
Good point. Node is as much for CLI as it is for web servers; plenty of libraries to make that and web scraping easy, and you get to have the browser as an environment. Lots of mileage there.
netbyte
What are some resources to get me started with Node?

P.S I have no knowledge of Javascript

netbyte
I don't have a negative output on Perl, its just that I wonder if its still worth learning because of the small community everyone talks about.
chromatic
Small community? That's a perception issue, and it's unfair (though understandable).

Perl's installed almost everywhere, used almost everywhere, and has the biggest repository of free and freely redistributable libraries known to mankind in the CPAN.

Language hipsters who've flocked from Ruby to Erlang to Clojure to Node.js may not yak about it as much as they do their new shiny, but don't confuse that for widespread use.

skykooler
Why the "or" specifically? In my opinion, it's probably best to learn them all.
chuhnk
They are all great for simple scripting with the ability to move into larger scale projects. I've been highly productive in all three with ruby probably being my favourite as I liked the syntax and flow of it a lot more than the other two. From my experience perl readability was always the most difficult, coming back to something I wrote a couple weeks later I felt like it was complete gibberish whereas ruby was much easier. The ruby community is huge, the libraries are endless and there is no lack of documentation out there. In my opinion ruby is where you should start.
minhajuddin
Ruby has a huge community, and is very flexible. Python is not as flexible as ruby (this is true when you do a lot of meta programming). But, the real reason you should use ruby is, because you don't like the syntax of python. I wouldn't want to work with something I don't like. And you can use ruby even in apps which are not web apps.
bmelton
You can use Python in apps that are not web apps, and not to be argumentative, but I would guess that if we were comparing which of the two languages was more popular for things that aren't web apps, Python would win by a very large margin.
p4lto
I just started studying a year or so ago, I looked around and saw more suggestions to start with Python than others. I don't remember seeing much about Ruby but I'm reading up on it as I get deeper into Python, they're relatively similar but I haven't had enough time with Ruby to understand it's philosophy.

Python is fun! I expect Ruby to be just as much, if not more so, I'm looking forward to it. Ultimately, I advise that you play around with different languages until you find one that you enjoy, that's a pretty significant factor to learning imo.

joshontheweb
I prefer python or javascript, but really, just pick one. Chances are you will have occasion to learn them all to some extent. I would shy away from perl personally. Although it has a huge install base and CPAN is expansive. It doesn't seem as popular these days and you'll likely have a hard time finding as many up-to-date examples for current use cases.