From: Eric Schwartz <emschwar@...>
Date: 2006-03-16T01:58:46+09:00
Subject: Ruby for Java Folks?

I've agreed to give a brief talk on Ruby for the Pikes Peak Java
Developers Group.  I've done stuff like this before at work, but that
was for a crowd coming from a background of shell scripting and Perl.
I'm not much of a Java guy myself, but I know there's a lot of overlap
between the Java and Ruby communities.  I can easily spend 45+ minutes
on Ruby no matter what, but if any of you have any suggestions on what
an audience of Java programmers would be interested in, I'd welcome
suggestions.

Here's some topics I plan to cover:

* Everything's a class.
* Interpreted vs. compiled, and how that affects
  both language design and performance.
* Static vs. dynamic typing, leading into
* Duck typing.
* Modifying library classes.
* Modifying individual objects-- emphasis on
  using this for testing frameworks.
* Briefly cover Test::Unit and maybe JRuby.

This is all subject to modification.  I may bring Test::Unit in
earlier, when I tart talking about duck typing.  I don't, I think,
want to get into too much comparison between the two languages-- these
are very knowledgable Java people, much more so than I am.  My best
approach, I think, is simply to present Ruby to them as a fun
language, perhaps for prototyping Java solutions, ideally as an end in
itself.

Any ideas on what else I should cover, or if I should de-emphasize
some of what I listed above would be welcome.

-=Eric