From: LAMBEAU Bernard <blambeau@...>
Date: 2010-02-03T01:00:08+09:00
Subject: Re: Why Ruby?

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Yes, it is a good general programming language. Three main features I have
in mind:

- the syntax helps you expressing what you want easily and intuitively

- high-level abstractions (from iterators/blocks to complex meta-programming
features) help you breaking big problems in smaller problems without being
required to introduce explicit interfaces, templates, etc.

- test/unit and rspec help you writing a lot of tests without being annoyed
by the task.

In my opinion you cannot answer the question without reasonably "specifying
a background for the learner". A good language should make you a better
developer everyday, helps you reading other's code, helps you learning about
test-driven devel, and so on. Ruby expects some background, but also helps
you getting that background quickly.

B

On Tue, Feb 2, 2010 at 4:32 PM, Jose Hales-Garcia <
jose.halesgarcia@stat.ucla.edu> wrote:

>
> On Feb 2, 2010, at 7:19 AM, Jim Maher wrote:
>
> > The problem is that ANY programming language will probably require tons
> > of study and years of practice before a developer achieves proficiency.
> > Is Ruby worth the investment for someone seeking a new programming
> > language?
>
> I'm far from an expert on this list, but in my two years of experience with
> Ruby I'd say unequivocally yes, Ruby is worth learning.  It's improved my
> programming generally.
>
> Rails is a framework for the web written in Ruby, so if you're coming to
> this as a web developer, then Rails is an excellent introduction to Ruby.
>  That's where I started and it's branched out to where Ruby has become my
> sysadmin scripting language of choice as well.
>
> Jose
> .......................................................
> Jose Hales-Garcia
> UCLA Department of Statistics
> jose.halesgarcia@stat.ucla.edu
>
>

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