From: Justin White <just6979@...>
Date: 2003-01-31T09:05:30+09:00
Subject: Re: Newbie question


On Thursday, January 30, 2003, at 11:22 , Nicolay Vasiliev wrote:

> Hello!
>
> I am only interesting of Ruby. I need to know: why did you choose this
> prog. language. Which benefits gives it for you in comparison with
> another languages? If you leave any language or maybe prog.
> environment and went to Ruby - again why?

I'm a learning addict, so after I got the basics of C, C++, Perl5 
(including it's style of OO), I figured I'd look at something else. I 
found Ruby through Google Directory. Looked at some examples, tried 
porting some old little Perl scripts to Ruby, and loved it. Ended up on 
the mailing list and IRC channel and saw all these _helpful_ people, and 
that is a great bonus. My list of "languages to learn" has stalled at 
Ruby, and I'm not sure when it will ever start again. ;)

I was writing some code last night just to experiment with some numbers, 
and I realized that I rarely had to think "now how do i do this...", and 
i've only been using Ruby for a month or so. Ruby stays out of your way 
and lets you work. And even though a good amount of libraries exist, 
it's so easy to make your own stuff it you can't (or don't want to) find 
a existing solution.

Also, being a very Pure OO language is wonderful. No explicitly passing 
self like in Perl or Python, no wrapping basic types with classes like 
in Java. Not to mention the syntax is very clean and pragmatic.

Some other benefits:
* runs most anywhere
* interpreted (no waiting for compiles)
* runs most anywhere
* well organized internally (i haven't looked at much, but others tell 
me it's nice looking at the C sources.
* extensible in Ruby or C, and they mix unnoticably


-Justin White

just6979@yahoo.com
http://tin.2y.net/
AIM: just6979