From: Jan Keiser <j.keiser@...>
Date: 2001-11-13T16:48:45+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:24986] Re: Linux Magazine article

Dave Thomas wrote:
> Andy & I've been asked to write a feature article about Ruby for Linux
> Magazine (www.linux-mag.com).
> 
> I want to make this an upbeat article, featuring Ruby's strengths, and
> not other language's weaknesses. So, a quick poll request: what
> features of Ruby do you think would most impress or excite someone who
> hasn't used the language yet? What small applications would whet
> people's appetites?

First impressions from a perl/ksh-oldie and Ruby-nubie:

- Many familiar things from perl, e.g. text handling.

- Very clean looking, easy to read code (think extending
  two year old programs).

- Iterators and an absolutely lovely case statement.

- Clean exception handling.

- Easy to understand, create and extend classes.

- Intuitive everything is an object.

I have'nt tried it yet, but support for unit testing looks
very interesting.

Let Ruby speak for itself, i.e. not too many comparisons with other
languages. IMHO the 'aha effect' from a code example
is much stronger when the reader says 'Hmm, how would I do _that_
in ...'.

Jan

---
Jan Keiser
E-Mail:  j.keiser@airbus.dasa.de
Tel.:    +49 421 5383971