SciRuby: Science and Matrix Libraries For Ruby

Aciel writes "Ruby has long been popular in the web/business community, while Python dominates the scientific community. One new project seeks to bring balance to the force: SciRuby. We've already introduced a linear algebra library called NMatrix (currently alpha status). There's at least one fellowship available for students interested in working on the project this summer."

Re:Tell me one thing this brings to the table

[FrootLoops]

The SciRuby Manifesto [github.com] does discuss the question, "Why Ruby?"

Why Ruby?

First and least, Ruby is a language with a sense of humor.

But more importantly, numerical computation and visualization can be done much better in Ruby, for a number of reasons:

        ''Everything returns a value.'' Ruby's better object model means better chaining of computation.
        ''Iterators'' are way better than ''for'' loops (each_slice, each_cons, etc.).
        ''Readability.'' Ruby is incredibly readable, which makes it uber-maintainable.
        ''Metaprogramming.'' Sometimes the simplest solution is to write a [http://github.com/wycats/thor code generator]. Sometimes, eigenclasses are the cleanest.
        ''Integration into Rails.'' The influence of Rails on Ruby is undeniable. Web-based visualization for scientific projects is the future.
        ''R is nice but clunky.'' The learning curve is enormous. It does some things very well, and others not very well at all (try doing a multi-line plot in R).

Unfortunately it ignores the alternative of just using Python.

There's also a (I'll be charitable) silly discussion in this vein on the same page:

Ruby has no equivalent to the beautifully constructed numpy, scipy, and matplotlib libraries for Python. We believe that the time for a Ruby science and visualization package has come and gone. Sometimes when a solution of sugar and water becomes super-saturated, from it precipitates a pure, delicious, and diabetes-inducing crystal of sweetness, induced by no more than the tap of a finger. So it is, we believe, with the need for numeric and visualization libraries in Ruby.

IMO, this is a misguided waste of time and it's nearly inactive anyway.