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What is Ruby?

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# 1  
Old 09-21-2010
What is Ruby?
Lately there have been a lot of one-liners posted in "ruby" on the apparent assumption that mainstream unix or Linux come with "ruby. They don't.
  1. What is "ruby"?
  2. What platforms and Operating System versions are supported?
  3. The syntax for "ruby" seems remarkably obscure compared with say "awk" or "perl". Is it related to APL?
# 2  
Old 09-21-2010
Reference:

Ruby (programming language) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Quote:
Ruby is a dynamic, reflective, general purpose object-oriented programming language that combines syntax inspired by Perl with Smalltalk-like features. Ruby originated in Japan during the mid-1990s and was first developed and designed by Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto. It was influenced primarily by Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, and Lisp.

Ruby supports multiple programming paradigms, including functional, object oriented, imperative and reflective. It also has a dynamic type system and automatic memory management; it is therefore similar in varying respects to Python, Perl, Lisp, Dylan, Pike, and CLU.

The standard 1.8.7 implementation is written in C, as a single-pass interpreted language. There is currently no specification of the Ruby language, so the original implementation is considered to be the de facto reference. As of 2010[update], there are a number of complete or upcoming alternative implementations of the Ruby language, including YARV, JRuby, Rubinius, IronRuby, MacRuby, and HotRuby, each of which takes a different approach, with IronRuby, JRuby and MacRuby providing just-in-time compilation and MacRuby also providing ahead-of-time compilation. The official 1.9 branch uses YARV, as will 2.0 (development), and will eventually supersede the slower Ruby MRI.
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methyl
# 3  
Old 09-21-2010
Quote:
Originally Posted by methyl
What is "ruby"?
Just another programming language

Quote:
Originally Posted by methyl
What platforms and Operating System versions are supported?
the usual, Solaris, Windows,Linux, MacOS. etc

Quote:
Originally Posted by methyl
The syntax for "ruby" seems remarkably obscure compared with say "awk" or "perl"
that's because you don't know about it. Same concept as a person who doesn't understand Perl/awk will find them "obscure" as well.

Quote:
Originally Posted by methyl
Lately there have been a lot of one-liners posted in "ruby" on the apparent assumption that mainstream unix or Linux come with "ruby. They don't.
who says one has to solve everything using just "mainstream" tools? And how do you define mainstream? For example, nowadays, linux packages/CDs comes with Ruby. Either its selected by default or an administrator can choose to install it. Now, does the system become "mainstream" in that situation, or not?
Ruby is just a tool like any other languages out there, Perl, Python you name it.
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methyl Neo pludi
# 4  
Old 09-21-2010
Quote:
Originally Posted by kurumi
Ruby is just a tool like any other languages out there, Perl, Python you name it.
I agree. It is pretty easy to install, for example on Debian / Ubuntu:

Code:
root@myserver:/home/neo/bin# ruby
The program 'ruby' is currently not installed.  You can install it by typing:
apt-get install ruby
ruby: command not found

On my Mac, is it installed "out of the box".

OSX: man ruby

See also: Apropos for Ruby

See also: Ruby Home Page (English)
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# 5  
Old 09-21-2010
Thanks for the links.

Having now seen properly laid out whole programs in Ruby the language structure is a bit clearer. I still am surprised that a modern programming language can have an obscure syntax.

Having first learnt to program in Algol 68, I find Python easiest to follow of the modern crop of languages. I've used a large number of programming and scripting languages over the years and have my favourites.
# 6  
Old 09-21-2010
Understood.

I don't program in Ruby, but a lot of people do!

Seem interesting, from a OO scripting perspective.
# 7  
Old 09-21-2010
Having now read the roots of "Ruby" are in "Lisp" it's giving me flashbacks. I found "Lisp" a pain the first time around compared with some of the contemporary languages.

Thank you all again for your responses. I've been bursting to ask the question for weeks.
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