Kaustub D., David G. A comparison of object oriented scripting languages: Python and Ruby

Of late, scripting languages are becoming popular amongst program-
mers. This is mostly due to the proliferation of the Internet, where script-
ing languages offer abundant opportunity, e.g. cgi scripts, string and data
processing etc. The main reason for the use of scripting languages is their
simplicity, power, and ease of use.
Python and Ruby are two such scripting languages which try to embody
the object-oriented paradigm and make it accessible to the general script
programmer. Both take diametrically opposite views in bringing the object-
oriented paradigm to the procedural world of scripting. Python starts out as
a procedural language and adds object-oriented features for a programmer
who wants to use them, while Ruby starts out as a pure object-oriented lan-
guage and then makes the code look like procedural program, thus making
it accessible to the general user. In this report we compare two approaches
and point out the advantages or disadvantages of each approach. We have
tried to make unbiased judgments, as we were not familiar with either of
the languages before the start of this project.