Should I learn Scala or Ruby?
Ruby has the reputation of being hot or cool
or whatever the word is for something on the
cutting edge these days.
It is what the top startups use.
Ruby is popular in Silicon Valley, and a lot
of other groups use that language just to
say they use what the hot shots use.
Even though startups like Groupon and Twitter
moved off Ruby as they got big.
Ruby has more code modules available.
Doesn’t Ruby have a lot of resources available
to teach you?
Ruby has been evolving so fast that many of
those online resources are obsolete.
Ruby gets high marks for teaching beginners
and app clubs.
How hard can it be?
Unfortunately, that means it gets used to
write apps it isn’t really good for.
Scala is considered better for big projects
and integrated applications.
Scala has been voted more likely to be around
for another 20 years.
Ruby may not last another five, if it is the
flash in the pan some people think it is.
Adobe Flash has been treated like a Flash
in a pan and it is still all around.
Ruby may be best for quick little projects,
but even Lisp has lasted 50 years.
If that’s true, then Ruby isn’t such a
gem, despite what Ruby modules are called.
Ruby has a much more dogmatic community than
Scala.
That just means it becomes the programming
language equivalent of Haskell or OS equivalent
to BSD – hardly used except by the devout
followers.
Here’s a reason to learn it – there are
twenty or more Ruby jobs than Scala jobs on
the job boards right now.
Then I’m going to have to go with popular
opinion.
What?
Scala, because there’s so much good press?
No, Ruby, because more people literally vote
with their dollars.
