Slashdot Mirror
Ruby 2.0.0 Released
An anonymous reader writes "Today version 2.0.0 of Ruby has been released. This is a stable release, and the Ruby team has done their best to make it compatible with 1.9, making it easier to migrate than it was to switch from 1.8 to 1.9. New core language features include: 'Keyword arguments, which give flexibility to API design; Module#prepend, which is a new way to extend a class; A literal %i, which creates an array of symbols easily; __dir__, which returns the dirname of the file currently being executed; and UTF-8 default encoding, which make many magic comments omissible.' There are also new built-in libraries for lazy stream and for an asynchronous exception handling API. The release includes a number of performance improvements and debug support for DTrace."
Should have been released on Tuesday. Ruby Twosday. :D
the O'reily nut shell book is the thinest book (even thinner than C++)
You're right, O'Reilly's C++ In a Nutshell is a mere 810 pages long, whereas their Perl in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition is a scant 768 pages.
When I think C++ and Perl, I think lean.
Light the blue touch-paper and retire immediately.
1. Ruby is not a toy not suitable for 'serious' programs, it's very similar to Python in fact, it's not as strong on science or math though as python because of libraries available in Python, if that's what you mean, say that, it's far more convincing.
2. Python could easily replace Perl for system admin tasks - come up with specific criticisms if you have met with any roadblocks - you would likely find similar problems with Ruby to Python if you somehow couldn't manage sysadmin or text scripting with Python.
3. Ruby, Python and Perl are actually quite interchangeable and could all be used for 'serious' tasks, or for short admin or text processing - all 3 are ideally suited to these things, and frankly the differences are not huge, Perl is slightly gnarlier, Python slightly stricter, Ruby slightly more anarchic, all 3 would get the job done easily.
4. WTF has Rails got to do with any of this? Troll much?
5. Why should we waste our time trying to convince someone with such trenchant and at the same time wildly inaccurate preconceived ideas?
(sorry if this is double-posted - slashdot is choking)
Perl is way faster. Like twice as fast. Check out my test:
% time (echo | ruby)
( echo | ruby; ) 0.01s user 0.00s system 91% cpu 0.016 total
% time (echo | perl)
( echo | perl; ) 0.00s user 0.00s system 84% cpu 0.007 total
Though this is ruby 1.9.3. I don't think 2.0 is twice as fast as 1.9.3.
But I've looked at ruby syntax a bit and it looks like it might have the advantage perl has for quick ad hoc text parsing but an overall cleaner syntax.
What I don't care a lot about is fancy pants modules like rails. If I want to do something serious there's python.
If you're happy shredding text with perl, I see no reason to change. If you're happy doing serious work with python, I see no reason to change.
Ruby is a, dynamic, duck-type OO language with closures, exceptions, and a debugger.
It has nice library infrastructure: http://rubygems.org/
It is generally a little less popular than Python and Perl, depending on your yardstick: http://www.langpop.com/
There are a few implementations of ruby, including one in java (with great bridging to java classes), one for iOS (with great bridging to iOS libraries), and one based on .net (with great bindings there). So if you have a particular target platform, one of those may interest you.
But here's the cononical answer to your question:
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?PythonVsRuby
You might be interested in JRuby and Jython and their ability to communicate...
I code in Ruby for a living (Rails), and I think it's a really fun language. Which is something a fair number of rubyists say, and which is something you don't hear a lot of other folks say about their language of choice. For what that's worth...
I code in Ruby for a living (Rails), and I think it's a really fun language. Which is something a fair number of rubyists say, and which is something you don't hear a lot of other folks say about their language of choice. For what that's worth...
This. So much this.
Over the years I've used various languages to some degree... C, C++,Java, PHP, Perl.... and Ruby is simply the most fun and most expressive. I'll allow that all these languages have their strengths. (ok, not PHP). Python, too has many valid proponents and use cases, but I just can't have fun in a whitespace sensitive language. Java - I think is nice for people that like to type a lot. The modern day COBOL. But if IIRC, the fastest ruby interpreter is currently JRuby, so I can't entirely fault Java. C and C++ is obviously best for kernels and libraries where speed matters a lot, but obviously horrible for web application development.
For my own interests in web application development, Ruby on Rails is a sweet spot... I can make a lot of money doing something really fun. What's not to like about that?
Java also sports the "everything is an object" mentality.
Say what?!?!?! Java explicitly distinguishes between primitives and objects! You can't send messages to primitives or literals in Java, only to objects and classes. Contrast with Ruby, where "5.times {p rand}" is a perfectly legitimate way to print five random numbers because the literal "5" is an Integer object which can respond to any message Integers implement.