[ruby-talk:03356] Re: Selling Rubies by the Carat

> Andy and I have a question:
>
> Why should people learn Ruby?

I can say why I learned it (which has been quite recently). In my case, any benefit from Ruby had to overcome what benefits there were from using Perl and Korn Shell (both of which are quite powerful!).

1. Wanted to learn Object-Orientated Programming (OOP). I've tried to teach myself Smalltalk (anyone know Pocket Smalltalk? :-) but without a guru to bother with endless and inane questions it gets to be tough and can make one not continue, even if only by apathy and laziness.

2. Code easier to maintain.  OOP can be much easier to maintain, and includes many programming ideas which help considerably.

3. Code easier to prove correctness.  OOP helps in this area too, helping to make things not only work, but provably correct (or closer to it).

4. Extensible.  Another OOP advantage - if you don't like how a feature works, you can rewrite it.

Then there are the reasons I continued to learn it :-)

5. Large base of users and gurus, with quick responses not only from major book authors, but also from recognized Japanese software wizards :-)  I'm starting to realize the unrealized importance of a support network, of being able to ask dumb questions and get answers (ofttimes with gentle reminders to read the FAQ :-)

6. Power. The capabilities of Ruby are incredible - networking? Web servers? Amazing.