Python had a huge head start. It was already one of the most used scripting languages by the late 90s and Ruby barely even existed outside of Japan.
Ruby’s beginner-friendliness and consistent OO design managed to help it expand in the early aughts and Rails brought the language to prominence in 2005, but by that time Python was already replacing Perl in its niche and had support from giants like Google.
Ruby got more adoption than would have been predicted based on its late entrance and lack of truly differentiating features, and that’s a credit to its ergonomics, community and how easy it is to learn.
Ruby’s beginner-friendliness and consistent OO design managed to help it expand in the early aughts and Rails brought the language to prominence in 2005, but by that time Python was already replacing Perl in its niche and had support from giants like Google.
Ruby got more adoption than would have been predicted based on its late entrance and lack of truly differentiating features, and that’s a credit to its ergonomics, community and how easy it is to learn.