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Interview with the Creator of Ruby

Lisa writes: "Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto talks about Ruby's history, the influence of Perl and Python on Ruby, and his new book, Ruby in a Nutshell. In the article he explains: "When I started the language project, I was joking with a friend that the project must be code-named after a gemstone's name (àla Perl). So my friend came up with "ruby". It's a short name for a beautiful and highly valued stone. So I picked up that name, and it eventually became the official name of the language. Later, I found out that pearl is the birthstone for June, and ruby is the birthstone for July. I believe Ruby is an appropriate name for the next language after Perl.""

4 of 183 comments (clear)

  1. urls by jrs+1 · · Score: 5, Informative

    there the ruby language home page and you can download the latest version.

  2. Re:It ain't bad... by JamesOfTheDesert · · Score: 4, Informative
    It desperately needs a Camel book...


    Perhaps one of these (some out know, some to be published Real Soon Now) would help.


    Programming Ruby: A Pragmatic Programmer's Guide, by David Thomas, Andrew Hunt
    Paperback - 608 pages 1st edition (December 15, 2000)
    Addison-Wesley Pub Co; ISBN: 0201710897

    Ruby Developer's Guide, by Michael Neumann
    Paperback - 520 pages 1st edition (November 2001)
    Publishers Group West; ISBN: 1928994644

    Ruby In A Nutshell, by Yukihiro Matsumoto
    Paperback - 230 pages 1st edition (November 2001)
    O'Reilly & Associates; ISBN: 0596002149

    The Ruby Programming Language (With CD-ROM), by Yukio Matsumoto
    Paperback - 496 pages Bk&Cd-Rom edition (July 5, 2002)
    Addison Wesley Professional; ISBN: 020171096X

    The Ruby Way, by Hal Fulton Guy Hurst
    Paperback, 400pp. ISBN: 0672320835
    Publisher: Sams, Pub. Date: November 2001

    Sams Teach Yourself Ruby in 21 Days, by Mark Slagell
    Paperback, 1st ed., 600pp. ISBN: 0672322528
    Publisher: Sams Pub. Date: December 2001

    Programmieren mit Ruby, by Armin Röhrl, Stefan Schmiedl, Clemens Wyss, etc.
    dpunkt.de; ISBN 3898641511 (February, 2002)
    --

    Java is the blue pill
    Choose the red pill
  3. I really hope Ruby gains ground by Colonel+Panic · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's a joy to program in...

    * There's iterators & blocks
    *A unified class/type system (meaning you can extend built-in types like String,Array,Hash,Kernel, etc)
    * fully OO - 42.times { |i| puts i }
    but it doesn't get in the way when you don't want OO, like it seems to with Java.
    * Design patterns - Observable,Delagator,Singleton,...
    * dRuby - Ruby's very easy to use distributed object system.

    For now it's great fun, hopefully someday it'll pay the bills too. ;-)

  4. A framework for web apps by metlin · · Score: 3, Informative

    Rappsrv is an interesting framework for web applications written entirely in Ruby.

    You can check out the site, the code and the thing at work.

    Pretty neat! There are also some nice Ruby resources at the same site.