Ruby and Lisp

Posted by jgrant, 2006-10-10 15:42:00

Eric Kidd wrote a great article comparing Ruby and Lisp last year called Why Ruby is an acceptable LISP. Besides the annoyance that he calls it LISP there were many great points and counter-points from the comments. Reading everything behind the link above is advised.

The articles main points:

1. Ruby is a denser functional language than LISP Lisp.
2. Ruby gives you about 80% of what you want from macros.
3. Ruby’s libraries, community, and momentum are good

Some of his examples are not as true as they were last year but I'm sure that the author is aware of this.

So for anyone considering one over the other this is the best on the topic that I've seen so far.

Update 2009-02-23 : Ruby is definitely not an acceptable Lisp but worth exploring if you'd like to take a short stop on the programming language continuum on your way up.