Latest technology trends have shown that Python is getting more popular than Ruby the past two years (re: “Outlook for dynamic languages: Not so good,”). Both are great languages, but I think that Python is more syntax-friendly, more efficient and has a very mature community (libraries and frameworks).
The argument that Ruby on Rails (or other similar Web frameworks) are not really improving productivity because they only work with toy applications is fallacious. Web frameworks are not the main point here; there are many of them, and no one forces you to use one for Web development.
The fact is that scripting languages are really more productive than former languages such as Java. Write less, do more. On top of that, they are extremely powerful for refactoring and testing, a perfect match for Web development, but even for desktop applications. The future is with scripting languages, and companies are realizing it. Even the Java world is seeing the winds of change with new languages that build on the JVM, such as Groovy, Scala, Closure, etc.
This is a trend that will stay for the following years and just keep growing.
Alex
Canada
Microsoft’s Silverlight conundrum
(In reference to “Android, iOS or Windows Phone 7: Place your bets,”): Except nobody but Microsoft supports Silverlight, while Microsoft is showing how noble and business-minded they are by supporting Flash on the phones they license for use with the Windows Phone OS. This giving Microsoft back some of its own medicine (so to speak) remains crippling on the emerging tablet and HDTV platforms as well, but in the end, it only kills jobs for developers and limits the customers buying the devices.
Clinton Gallagher
virtualCable TV
