In the end, it's all about the ecosystem. Perl wins for bioinformatics because there are boatloads of scientists already using it, with all the neat libraries and resources that brings. Equally, Python wins for, say, prototyping in robotics because of libraries, support and so on.
There's nothing intrinsically science-apt about Python/Perl, but Ruby and friends can't compete when it comes to the programming environment; that's what counts.
As a language I prefer Ruby but the Python ecosystem for this kind of thing is definitely a huge advantage. You can actually do quite a bit with Ruby + GSL but it's still not really competitive.
Yep, same with me. I do prefer Ruby, but it's just not feasible at the moment. Languages that get behind in a certain area enter a terribly vicious circle: There's no scientific community backing Ruby, so why would I develop something that'd make Ruby more competitive?
I'm in the same boat and it seems like several others as well. I'm fine moving to Python for the moment, but I wonder how the Ruby community will ever know if there's enough of a demand for scientific tools to merit their development?
I prefer Ruby generally, but honestly Ruby and Python are sufficiently similar that I'd rather smart programmers put their time to good use doing something other than reimplementing Python's science libs.
I think that making some tools available in a totally different language (maybe something functional) would be much more useful, because it would allow for a very different approach to the problem if needed.
In a perfect world, we could also have the option of using light wrappers around OpenCL matrix libraries, and push the linear algebra to GPUs that eat matrices for breakfast.
Agreed. There's only so much skilled labor available for this kind of thing.
This is exactly why I'm focusing on Python lately. Ruby is a great language but I don't want to be pigeon-holed as a web guy forever. I've already done over 10 years of web dev and I'd like to try out a couple of new problem domains before I kick the bucket.
I'll have to agree as well. The only problem for me is: if not on the web, how are we going to make GUIs that aren't severely limited to our platform? Wasn't web design supposed to solve the "platform question"?
There are a number of cross-platform GUI toolkits. For instance, QT is pretty nice wherever you put it, and KDE's been putting a lot of work into making their libraries and such work on Windows.
I'm not a huge fan of Qt simply because I can't get it to feel natural on Gnome, my desktop of choice. I've looked into Gtk+, but I'm not so sure I want to commit to it yet.
Are there plans to make Qt feel more natural on Gnome and OS X?
There's nothing intrinsically science-apt about Python/Perl, but Ruby and friends can't compete when it comes to the programming environment; that's what counts.