From: Smokey The Bear <smokey.thc@...>
Date: 2006-11-25T04:49:14+09:00
Subject: What can Ruby offer?

I have been looking into the Ruby language for awhile now.....reading
lots of information on its capabilities and whatnot. I bought the
Programming Ruby book as well to look into it some more. What blurs the
lines is information on Ruby and Ruby on Rails.

I'm just wondering if Ruby has the capability to create PROGRAMS in the
sense that say that I want to develop a multimedia program like a music
player, Can Ruby build a music player that doesn't require installations
of ruby to be on the existing system? I know pretty much all *nix
systems have ruby installed by default, but I don't like the sound of
developing a music player that acts like a script and requires an
existing installation of Ruby on said system.

I know it can call and access native APIs on the platforms it's
available on but can such a program be done with Ruby? I'm really into
multimedia and I see myself developing multimedia applications.

I just don't understand the capabilities of Ruby and what should this
tool be used for?