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.""

Comments

better alternative for product development

[Lepruhkawn]

If someone INSISTS on using a scripting language to build thousands of line of code that I then have to try and maintain and enhance as a product, I'd welcome any alternative scripting language that doesn't encourage obfuscated code as much as Perl does.

I don't know if Ruby fits that bill, but it would be a reason to switch if it does.

Of course, I know that code in any language can be well documented and written so that's easy to understand. It just seems like code written in Perl is much more likely to be difficult to read than in other languages more appropriate for applications.

I'm part of a group that has had Perl code (using the OO facilities) handed off to it to maintain and fix. It contains many Packages and probaby several thousand lines of code. Not sure. I've successfully kept my name off the responsibility list for that code. It's been pure hell for the engineers that have been asked to fix it--and all it's supposed to be is a simple parser and data access interface.

I use Perl myself for my own scripting but it can be cruel and unusual punishment to be given someone else's Perl to maintain.

It's enough to make you take your clothes off and run around the office screaming "I CAN'T CODE NAKED!!! AHAHAHAHAAHAH!!!" until they put you on a different project.

Re:mmmm

[smallpaul]

Other scripting languages have really hit a wall in development because of the objectless syntax, but ruby, is a piece of work.

Yeah, I can see your point. The other languages have a totally objectless syntax!

Too bad they have all hit a wall.