Source
r/learnprogramming•
KingPyot

Ruby on Rails vs Node.js vs Python. Which one to learn first?

Currently studying a bachelor of CS at University. Unfortunately, they have me working through Pascal at the moment which is good for understanding the basics. Although, I really want to start working with a modern widely used language. Where is a good place to start? I've heard that Ruby on Rails, Node.JS and Python are all really good languages to start. Would love to get some thoughts from people working in the web dev / software dev space.

Posted Mar 13, 2018, 9:11 AM UTC · edited

23
pacificmint•

Of those three personally I'd pick Python over Node and Node over RoR.

But really, it doesn't matter that much. Most of the skills you'll learn will be transferable. Getting practice and building things is the most important thing. The language matters less.

4
nutrecht•

What languages are you going to use in the coming years? I'd focus on that. It doesn't really matter which language you pick so I'd suggest picking one that gives you a head start.

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insertAlias•

When you say "first", are you implying that you plan on learning all three?

Start with one. All three can do pretty much the same things. RoR and Node.js are traditionally web-back-end languages, but Ruby can be used as a general-purpose language, and so can JS. Python is traditionally a general-purpose language that has a couple of packages that can be used to be a web-back-end (Flask and Django).

So really, any of them are a decent choice. RoR isn't as popular as it once was (much of that popularity went to Node.js, but will probably go somewhere else when the next new hot thing comes out). So if I had to pick right now for myself (and pretend that I wasn't already familiar with Node) I'd pick Python.

But I don't recommend moving on until you have a firm understanding of the language and framework, and have built several non-trivial projects with them.

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