Grex Systems Conference

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Grex Systems Item 23: The Ruby item
Entered by cross on Sat Sep 16 23:27:59 UTC 2006:

Ruby is a full-featured, high level, dynamically typed, object oriented
scripting language developed by Yukihiro Matsumoto in Japan.  It is an
extremely powerful and friendly language.  For more information, visit:

http://www.ruby-lang.org/

Ask your Ruby questions here!

7 responses total.

#1 of 7 by jimj on Tue Nov 14 04:28:42 2006:

Any Ruby hackers out there?  I've really been enjoying ruby as my 'glue
language' of choice.  I never really got into perl that much as I was
always turned off by the esoteric symbols and general hard-to-readness.
 I've used perl for odd job tasks in the past, however I was never
really happy or comfortable with the language.  

I started looking at Python and Ruby at about the same time a couple
years ago.  Ruby just clicked with me better.  It's really natural to
read and write and it can do some incredibly slick stuff.

#2 of 7 by cross on Tue Nov 14 22:36:28 2006:

I like Ruby; it's probably my language of choice right now.  I find it easier
to program in than most competitors, and yes, I also like it better than
Python (though I know some who are the exact opposite).  Regardless, Python
has been useful because it has more libraries....

#3 of 7 by twenex on Tue Nov 14 22:39:29 2006:

I've been recommended to learn Python by my local LUG.

#4 of 7 by mcnally on Wed Nov 15 00:50:56 2006:

 I'm looking to switch away from Perl because I think its syntax is 
 hideous and I find it borderline unmaintainable.  I love the fact
 that CPAN has a module for just about everything, though..

 Is library support in ruby years behind Perl & Python or is it
 close but just not as good?

#5 of 7 by jimj on Wed Nov 15 03:40:26 2006:

That is definitely one big downside of ruby compared to Python and Perl.
 Libraries either don't exist in ruby that do for the other two, or
sometimes libraries do exist but the documentation either doesn't exist
or is still in Japanese.  However when libraries are done right, the
syntax is very intuitive and the code seems to write itself.  

I think there's a bit of a mental shift going into ruby.  The coder has
to learn the way ruby does and expects things.  Once that shift is made
I think it's much easier to just get things done with the language.  I'm
still going through that shift somewhat but I'm definitely much more
comfortable with the language now than I was even 6 months ago.

I still plan on picking up Python at some point simply because it's so
widely used and I shouldn't discriminate against a tool as handy as it
potentially could be.

#6 of 7 by cross on Wed Nov 15 22:27:34 2006:

I wouldn't say that it's light years behind, but it depends on what you want
to do.  For most basic things, there are decent Ruby libraries.  For more
esoteric things, you're still better off with Perl or Python (though I've
found recently that the quality of CPAN libraries, say, varies wildly).

#7 of 7 by papa on Tue Feb 6 11:47:54 2018:

Thinking of making Ruby my next language to pick up. I'm a big fan of Perl,
but it is painful to read even my own Perl after setting it aside for more
than three days. Have looked at Python, but while I've got nothing against
it, it seems a little too popular. Plus I live in Japan, Ruby's birthplace.

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