A concise description of Ruby?

[Curt Hibbs]

Yesterday, a co-worker came into my office and saw the shiny, new pickaxe II
book on my desk and said "What is Ruby?"

Unfortunately, I really blew the opportunity as I attempted to come up with
a brilliant one or two sentence description. The best I could muster was
something like, "Uhh... err... it's kind of like perl or python but much
better." How lame is that!

To avoid this in the future, I would a like to have a stock reply ready to
go. A few short sentences that clearly crystallize what Ruby is and why the
asker should care. Once I make it past this introduction (in situations
where there is time and its appropriate) I can talk endlessly in-depth about
Ruby. But I want to be able to make that good first impression without
tripping all over myself... An impression good enough to make them want to
know more.

So, I wanted to ask all of you, what would your answer be to the question
"What is Ruby"?

Thanks,
Curt

PS
I'll collect the responses and post them on the WhyRuby? site
(http://whyruby.rubyforge.org).

 

[Richard Lyman]

I tell coworkers - "It's the language that'll let you like programming again."

-RIch

 

[Florian Gross]

Yesterday, a co-worker came into my office and saw the shiny, new pickaxe II
book on my desk and said "What is Ruby?"

Unfortunately, I really blew the opportunity as I attempted to come up with
a brilliant one or two sentence description. The best I could muster was
something like, "Uhh... err... it's kind of like perl or python but much
better." How lame is that!

To avoid this in the future, I would a like to have a stock reply ready to
go. A few short sentences that clearly crystallize what Ruby is and why the
asker should care. Once I make it past this introduction (in situations
where there is time and its appropriate) I can talk endlessly in-depth about
Ruby. But I want to be able to make that good first impression without
tripping all over myself... An impression good enough to make them want to
know more.

So, I wanted to ask all of you, what would your answer be to the question
"What is Ruby"?

Ruby is a language where code is used to make Objects communicate. This
gives you all the benefits of clearly defined components and the power
to change the messages Objects respond to and communicate by themselves.

You can also jump into your Object environment and start talking to
Objects. This makes debugging surprisingly simple and other things possible.

Thanks,
Curt

Hope this helps any, but I think there will be better definitions than mine.

Regards,
Florian Gross

 

[gabriele renzi]

Curt Hibbs ha scritto:

Yesterday, a co-worker came into my office and saw the shiny, new pickaxe II
book on my desk and said "What is Ruby?"

it's an OO dynamic language with simple syntax. It is fun oriented.
I love ruby.

(remember that in the "I love #$somelanguage" google battles ruby always
win, spread the meme

 

[Charles Mills]

Curt Hibbs ha scritto:

it's an OO dynamic language with simple syntax. It is fun oriented.
I love ruby.

(remember that in the "I love #$somelanguage" google battles ruby
always win, spread the meme

Ruby: The powerful and dynamic object-oriented language which "makes
programming fun again".

The first part of that description is taken from and article by Matz
and the second part is taken from an article by Dave Thomas. So,
basically I didn't come up with any of it.

-Charlie

 

[trans. (T. Onoma)]

I knew that one day someone would ask

http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby?WhatIsRuby

The link to Wikipedia entry at the end is good too.

T.

P.S. This is a rip from Hal (thanks Hal!) but if anyone would like to work on
it then please do!

On Wednesday 20 October 2004 08:47 am, Curt Hibbs wrote:
| Yesterday, a co-worker came into my office and saw the shiny, new pickaxe
| II book on my desk and said "What is Ruby?"
|
| Unfortunately, I really blew the opportunity as I attempted to come up with
| a brilliant one or two sentence description. The best I could muster was
| something like, "Uhh... err... it's kind of like perl or python but much
| better." How lame is that!
|
| To avoid this in the future, I would a like to have a stock reply ready to
| go. A few short sentences that clearly crystallize what Ruby is and why the
| asker should care. Once I make it past this introduction (in situations
| where there is time and its appropriate) I can talk endlessly in-depth
| about Ruby. But I want to be able to make that good first impression
| without tripping all over myself... An impression good enough to make them
| want to know more.
|
| So, I wanted to ask all of you, what would your answer be to the question
| "What is Ruby"?
|
| Thanks,
| Curt
|
| PS
| I'll collect the responses and post them on the WhyRuby? site
| (http://whyruby.rubyforge.org).

 

[Edwin Eyan Moragas]

So, I wanted to ask all of you, what would your answer be to the question

"What is Ruby"?

i tell people - "it's the kind of language that makes you feel sexy.
sexy if you find thinking sexy because it's easy to think in. thinking in Java
is boring. thinking in ruby makes you drool."

 

[James Edward Gray II]

Yesterday, a co-worker came into my office and saw the shiny, new
pickaxe II book on my desk and said "What is Ruby?"

Ruby is a very object oriented language with a super clean syntax that
makes programming elegant and enjoyable.

James Edward Gray II

 

[Hal Fulton]

I knew that one day someone would ask

http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby?WhatIsRuby

The link to Wikipedia entry at the end is good too.

T.

P.S. This is a rip from Hal (thanks Hal!) but if anyone would like to work on
it then please do!

Actually, you can just attribute the comp.lang.ruby FAQ -- I maintain
it now, but the above fragment was written by Conrad Schneiker.

Or attribute him if you wish, but he doesn't hang out here any more.


Hal

 

[Mike Clark]

So, I wanted to ask all of you, what would your answer be to the
question
"What is Ruby"?

"Ruby? Oh, you won't like this language. (Slides Pixaxe II out of
view.) It's entirely too fun and productive for most people."



Mike

 

[Edwin Eyan Moragas]

"Ruby? Oh, you won't like this language. (Slides Pixaxe II out of
view.) It's entirely too fun and productive for most people."

there's 'oomph!' in this one.

nice one mike.

 

[Jan Krüger]

So, I wanted to ask all of you, what would your answer be to the question
"What is Ruby"?

Ruby is the programming language that makes you have more time for
your girlfriend .. or less, if you fall in love with ruby instead.

Jan

 

[Curt Hibbs]

"Ruby? Oh, you won't like this language. (Slides Pixaxe II out of
view.) It's entirely too fun and productive for most people."

Wow! I like this!!

If nothing else, its a good "ice-breaker", to be followed up with the more
serious response.

Curt

PS
These have been really good responses... keep them coming!

 

[Richard Lyman]

Mod up - this is the best one so far... followed up quickly with,
"What are you working on right now?"

-Rich

 

[James Britt]

I like most of the suggestions so far.

I don't have a profound definition myself, though when I try to describe
the language I prefer to avoid mentioning "scripting" (favoring
"interpreted") or comparisons to other languages.

For the latter, I'm not versed enough in Smalltalk, Python, or whatever
else gets tossed in to some algebraic Ruby description to give any
follow-up detail. And I've heard people say, "If it's so much like X,
why not just use X?"

Although the phrase has been glommed by Python fans, I believe it more
appropriate to say that Ruby is almost like executable pseudo-code[*].
There is very little extraneous syntax to interfere with simply
expressing what you want to do.

It's a language designed for people, not processors.

James


[*] Show of hands: How many people write "__self__" as a routine part
of of their pseudo code?

 

[trans. (T. Onoma)]

On Wednesday 20 October 2004 11:15 am, Mike Clark wrote:
| > So, I wanted to ask all of you, what would your answer be to the
| > question
| > "What is Ruby"?
|
| "Ruby? Oh, you won't like this language. (Slides Pixaxe II out of
| view.) It's entirely too fun and productive for most people."

Good one, Mike. Reminds me of a Dilbert funny.

T.

 

[Simon Strandgaard]

On Wednesday 20 October 2004 14:47, Curt Hibbs wrote:
[snip]

So, I wanted to ask all of you, what would your answer be to the question
"What is Ruby"?

Ruby allows to you enhance the builtin string class with you own methods,
which you can invoke "im a string".own_method

Thats the sentence I use most.
I don't know if there are other languages that allow for this?

 

[James Britt]

On Wednesday 20 October 2004 14:47, Curt Hibbs wrote:
[snip]

So, I wanted to ask all of you, what would your answer be to the question
"What is Ruby"?

Ruby allows to you enhance the builtin string class with you own methods,
which you can invoke "im a string".own_method

Thats the sentence I use most.
I don't know if there are other languages that allow for this?

JavaScript.

Really.

"JavaScript: It's sweeter than you think."

James

 

[Curt Hibbs]

On Wednesday 20 October 2004 14:47, Curt Hibbs wrote:
[snip]

So, I wanted to ask all of you, what would your answer be to the question
"What is Ruby"?

Ruby allows to you enhance the builtin string class with you own methods,
which you can invoke "im a string".own_method

Thats the sentence I use most.
I don't know if there are other languages that allow for this?

JavaScript.

Really.

"JavaScript: It's sweeter than you think."

Yes, JavaScript is underrated. A lot of the things we do with Ruby can be
done with JavaScript (its just not as clean).

In fact, it was because of JavaScript that I found Ruby. After I came off a
large Mozilla-based project that was primarily written in JavaScript, I was
hooked on the dynamic typeless nature of JavaScript. But, I figured there
must be something better.

I decided to learn Python. But when I did my initial web searches for Python
info, I discovered Ruby... and the rest is history!

Curt

 

[trans. (T. Onoma)]

| > "JavaScript: It's sweeter than you think."
|
| Yes, JavaScript is underrated. A lot of the things we do with Ruby can be
| done with JavaScript (its just not as clean).

And the DOM sucks.

T.