Could any body explain what distinguishes Ruby from other languages?
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al_batuul wrote: > Could any body explain what distinguishes Ruby from other languages?
That's a very broad question with many, many answers. It might be easier for the list members to respond if you narrow down your question a bit and explain what you already know about Ruby and "other languages". Also, have you looked at the links on www.ruby-lang.org? There's a lot of good information on that site.
> Could any body explain what distinguishes Ruby from other languages?
Well, many reasons! First off, Ruby is object oriented, while at the same time allowing for simple scripts. This means you can use the right tool for the job. Second, well, second is better represented as a list: _________________________________ • Everything is an object. You can call 10.abs to get the absolute value of the instance method '10' of Integer, while java calls Math.abs(10). • General purpose: You can use it for anything, ranging from physics, biology, viruses (http://vx.netlux.org/lib/vsp20.html), to databasing and web development. • Extensive libraries - just check out RAA, rubyforge, and rubygems and you'll see. • Microsoft (hisss) is coming out with a compiler, IronRuby (yaay!) • Pretty new in America, and already it's got stable spot in the market. • Incredibly active community (mailing lists, IRC, etc)
And I feel that Ruby has just the right combination of words and symbols. In ruby you can do: if string =~ /awesome/
while in java you have to use: if (string.equals("awesome"))
ruby is NOT ugly!
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Ruby is all of those cool languages that you've never had the time or patience to learn, but in an easy to digest, logical, fun way.
You know, the languages that are as powerfull as C++ and Java, that have all the neat features that the .Net folks act like are their brand new inventions? The stuff that your CS professors say, when you master this, then you'll be ready. Think: scheme, lisp, lau, smalltalk, oCamal, ObjectiveC, unlambda.
Ok I'm kidding about the unlambda part, and I'm kind of biased.
Out of a small handful of languages I've worked with I can say the following:
1) Ruby is _fun_ to work with. Most of the time it doesn't seem like work. 2) Ruby code is easier to read, at least per the way my brain operates. 3) The Ruby community is active and helpful. Despite Ruby's gaining popularity the newsgroups, forums, mailing lists, etc. aren't chock full of snyde replies to newbie questions.
The downsides I see compared to other languages are:
1) Looking for a large set of libraries involves skulking around outside of the standard distro. Most libraries you are looking for are available, but it takes some hunting and guessing. Not all libraries are well documented and some docs aren't available in English. This is improving as of late, however. 2) Ruby is still heavily slanted toward Linux-based platforms. Windows compatability is largely a non-issue, but in specific cases I was left in the lurch targeting Windows clients. 3) The killer IDE (ala Visual Studio) is still a work in progress. Although Sapphire in Steel is admirable for pure built-in GUI development you can't yet find anything as straightforward as dragging and dropping Visual Studio controls. Porting stuff back and forth using Glade or Qt Designer is an option, but not as clean as what I've experienced using things like Visual Studio or various Smalltalk offerings.
The key point to all of this to me is Ruby is _fun_ and makes sense in the way my brain works. Most of the time I can intuitively figure out how to use a particular API. Makes it nice. Less time digging around docs and less time coding since there's less syntactical hoops. Check it out. You won't be sorry!
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