# Re: Why Ruby over Python?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-why-ruby-over-python/98111>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [July 12, 2006, 4:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-why-ruby-over-python/98111 "2006-07-12T16:46:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jamal86](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/ebca7d/32.png) [@jamal86](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jamal86)\
**Post date:** [July 12, 2006, 4:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-why-ruby-over-python/98111/1 "2006-07-12T16:46:26Z")

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brad tilley wrote:

> This may be a trivial reason to most people, but it makes a huge  
> difference to me. I find it _much_ easier to turn .rb scripts into  
> standalone .exe executbales on Windows. I’ve used Python’s py2exe and  
> it  
> works OK, but Ruby’s rubyscript2exe is far better and far easier to  
> use.

I beg to differ. py2exe can create stand-alone executables that run the  
bundled files from memory, without having to extract them to disk. As  
pre-compiled byte code, execution is also faster than with source code  
that has to be initially interpreted. I appreciate the work that went  
into rubyscript2exe, but was dismayed to discover how many temporary  
files it extracted, some of them unnecessary to my program, and some  
duplicated among themselves in deeper subfolders of my Windows temporary  
folder. Also, since the Ruby interpreter is then run from a temporary  
folder rather than the application folder, it makes managing  
configuration information more difficult.

Jamal