Perl v Ruby (was: Re: Can I get some advice on best way to start Perl Programming)

[Kieren Diment]

On 01/09/2012, at 10:01 AM, Paul Makepeace wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 31, 2012 at 4:50 PM, Uri Guttman <uri at stemsystems.com> wrote:
>>> You don't say specifically Perl so I'm going to suggest a similar
>>> language:
>>> 
>> 
>> check the subject! :)
> 
> Oops!
> 
> Well the rest of ya can learn from the wonder of tryruby.org :)

I've been looking into ruby a bit (cos I'm looking for a bit more work - anybody need a couple of days a week of telecommuter time?).  It looks very similar to perl, although the slightly different philosophy suggests to me that it has 'pain in the arse points' that are somewhat different, with somewhat less pain in the arse defaults.  

Of course the latter appears to come at the extent of flexibility.  It looks to me like a competent perl programmer could get up to speed with ruby very quickly indeed, and vice-versa.  As part of my quest to become a more rounded individual I'm concurrently looking into python.  Philosophically this seems a bit more different to the perl/ruby philosophy, and as a result I am finding it a bit more interesting.  However the same seems to apply again it's  sufficiently similar that for an individual competent in one language, the vast bulk of the skills one learns seem pretty much transferrable between the three, implementation-specific details aside.