From: Dave Thomas <Dave@...>
Date: 2000-11-28T09:48:58+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:6596] Short articles for Borders newsletter


Hello, world!

Borders (the bookstore chain) has asked for a submission about Ruby for
their February computer book catalog. The entry should be fairly
non-technical, and not book specific, selling the technical
advantages. They're suggesting a bullet list of Ruby's advantages.

I'd be very interested in feedback on the following I heard about
this today, and they need it by Tuesday, so we'll have to move fast.

Thanks


Dave

ps. Sorry about the copyright. There's a reason to do with
transferring ownership that's kinda messy.

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Do you:

- like the expressiveness and power of Perl, but wish you could write
  easier-to-maintain programs?

- enjoy the cleanliness of Python, but wish it was fully
  object-oriented?

- miss the dynamic and flexible features of Smalltalk?

- feel frustrated with the limitations of Java

- use C++   ;-)

- want to write applications that run across multiple platforms?

- need low-level system integration combined with very-high-level
  programming constructs?

Do you want to make programming fun again?

Perhaps it's time to look at Ruby, a language that's already bigger
than Python in Japan, and which looks like it's on its way to being
really big over here. Ruby is something of a cross between Smalltalk
and Perl (laugh not), combining the flexibility and convenience of
Perl with the full object-orientation and dynamic nature of
Smalltalk. Ruby's used for cross-platform scripting, server-side web
applications, and full applications development. Ruby is attracting
attention in the eXtreme Programming community, as it facilitates the
rapid development of eminently maintainable object-oriented programs, 
potentially reducing iteration lengths and cutting the time between a
customer expressing requirements and a developer delivering results.

Ruby is open source software, and is available in both source form and 
in pre-compiled distributions for a variety of platforms. Check out
Ruby at http://www.ruby-lang.org.


Copyright (c) 2000 Dave Thomas