From: David Masover <ninja@...>
Date: 2008-06-09T15:25:19+09:00
Subject: Re: my first program just shuttin' down

On Monday 09 June 2008 00:42:30 Ruby Noob wrote:
> is ruby used for applications or websites?

First, that's a false dichotomy. (Wikipedia should explain that to you, if you 
don't figure it out...) Websites can be considered applications, hence the 
term "web application". Maybe you meant "desktop applications"?

Second, Ruby is Turing complete -- another phrase you can check Wikipedia for. 
That means it can theoretically be used for anything. That's not unique to 
ruby -- if it's not Turing-complete, it can't really be called a programming 
language.

Practically, there's the limitation that Ruby is slower than most other 
languages -- that's partly resolved in version 1.9, but I doubt Ruby will 
ever be as fast as C.

But anything for which speed is not a factor, or for which more speed can be 
obtained, you can use Ruby for. That covers almost any kind of program -- 
almost. Things like videogame engines are still mostly written in C/C++, 
because they need to run as fast as they possibly can on whatever hardware 
the gamer has available.