Just looking at the Ruby-Lang Design blog in which the Ruby Community are submitting, discussing and voting on a new format for their main page. It seems they will be going for a much more artistic approach to the new Python beta homepage.

John’s Ruby emblem. You guys were bonkers over this. The gem gives the site an artistic presence, a sparkle. Many of the logos we’ve toyed with made the site a bit too corporate or organizational. Ruby is expressive and I think the emblem conveys that.

Indeed looking at the two you can clearly see Python is heading for the corporate & academic sector with its scientists, professionals and simple abstract logo. Personally I’m a little disappointed as I’ve never felt Python was a cold, hard commercial language and looking at its beta homepage its a disappointment in comparison to Ruby’s more friendly and colourful interface. Not that it will make much difference to me in the long term but the looks of the flagship sites will affect new users.

You may also notice that the Ruby homepages bare a vague similarity to the Rails homepage. Or maybe its all that red thats confusing me!