In isolated offline code, I think Ruby approaches the unreadable - but only because DSLs are fashionable, and you have to understand the library involved to understand the magic that's going on behind the scenes. With sufficient online searching, you can understand things at a surface level, and with enough time with a debugger you can appreciate all the mechanics that are happening, but IMHO it still leaves you with an unpleasant taste in your mouth at the sheer quantity of magic.
I do prefer Ruby to Python though. I much prefer monadic enumerators combined with lambdas to list comprehensions, even though these tend to be eager in Ruby but have the option of being lazy in Python. Itertools helps, but is deeply hampered by Python's overly verbose lambda syntax.
Been thinking about Python vs Ruby lately. I dread reading other people's Ruby code (eg. if there is a problem in a library I'm using) but I don't have that same dread reading Python code. Now if Python had blocks and RubyGems then I would never give Ruby a second look.
What does RubyGems provide that isn't covered by pypy/eggs? I thought ruby and python packaging was approximated feature parity here (which is to say, both leave something to be desired, but work quite well).
But that's the thing y'know... It's not just about DSL but it's also Ruby's syntax that include lots of symbols (of course DSL made the learning curve increase as well).
By symbol I mean the use of tilda, pound sign, ampersand colon.
Seems to me that it's more of personal preference than anything else and this is why for me personally, Ruby is pretty close to Perl.
Somehow I prefer verbose than too terse. I prefer to read the code in words than in mix of words and symbols.
I do prefer Ruby to Python though. I much prefer monadic enumerators combined with lambdas to list comprehensions, even though these tend to be eager in Ruby but have the option of being lazy in Python. Itertools helps, but is deeply hampered by Python's overly verbose lambda syntax.