Due to the open source, it has become possible for almost everyone to write programming language of their own and make other people use it. Python and Ruby are two new and fast-growing players in the field of open source web languages. Though both of them are not programming languages, they are being widely used by people to empower their sites.

Python
According to the Python philosophy, the code has to be simple, readable and explicit. It says that there is only one and a very obvious way for doing a particular task. This is what makes it easy to work with. The disadvantage of Python is that it tends to be quite slow as compared to the other languages.

Google uses Python codes a lot. Also, the very popular file sharing system known as BitTorrent has been written with the use of Python. However, it is not very suitable for actual web programming as it is more of a programming language.

Ruby
It is quite new and has its roots in Japan. It allows you to perform complicated tasks with ease. It does not make the codes bulky and hence is quite powerful yet simple tool.

A good example for Ruby code is:

['sandwich', 'mayonnaise', 'coffee'].each { |food| print( food.capitalize ) }

This command creates an array with 'sandwich', 'mayonnaise', and 'coffee', followed by a function that prints the name of each food in capital letters. The entire thing can be completed with just one line command. Though it doesn't seem a lot right now, but is very useful once you connect it to a database for retrieval of records, formatting them and putting them on the screen. All this can be done with a single-line code.

Due to the web's framework that makes website development much quicker, Ruby has become very popular. This framework is called Ruby on Rails and is just a year old. However, it is growing at a rapid pace because programmers like to use it. There is no need to write database codes again and again.

Watch Out for Web Host Support
A big downside of the use of minority programming languages is that there may not be many web hosts with these languages installed on their servers. You will be forced to find smaller hosts who might be more costly than expected.