What is Ruby?

Ruby is an object-oriented programming language interpreter that was developed by the Japanese programmer Yukihiro Matsumoto. The language combines a syntax inspired by Python and Perl with object-oriented programming functions similar to Smalltalk. The official implementation is distributed under a license for free software (open source).
 

What is Ruby?

Ruby is a high-level interpreted general-purpose programming language. The language is dynamically typed and uses garbage collection. It supports several object-oriented programming paradigms, including procedural and functional programming.

Ruby is based on many other languages such as Perl, Lisp, Smalltalk, Eiffel, and Ada. This language has an elegant syntax that is naturally readable and easy to write. The syntax is similar to that of C and Java, so Java and C programmers can easily learn Ruby. Ruby supports all major platforms like Windows, Mac, Linux.
 

 
As an interpreting script language, most instructions are executed directly without a compiler having to translate the code into machine-language instructions. Ruby programmers also have access to the powerful features of RubyGems. This is a powerful package manager for the Ruby programming language that provides a standard format for distributing Ruby programs and libraries, in a stand-alone format called “gem”, as well as tools to easily manage the installation of gems on a server.
 

What are the advantages of Ruby?

One of the advantages of Ruby is to allow easy and fast creation of web applications. The language fulfills this goal very well. For this reason, working with this language is much less tedious than with many other programming languages.

Ruby is also open source and free to use. The language may be copied, modified and redistributed. Since Ruby can be modified, programmers can make the necessary changes and code without limitation. Another advantage of Ruby is garbage collection, which is automatic memory management and cleanup. If the operating system allows it, Ruby can dynamically load extension libraries.

One of the most noticeable advantages of Ruby is the ability to call methods and functions. Brackets, which are usually found in methods and functions of other programming languages, are not required here, especially if no arguments are required.

To speed up application development, Ruby can be used in conjunction with an IDE (Integrated Development Environment). In this way, a programmer can write, run, and debug programs with relative ease.
 

 
Other advantages of the language are:

• Ruby allows you to embed code. For example, Ruby can be embedded in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML).
• The language supports several programming paradigms such as procedural programming, object-oriented programming as well as functional programming, which makes it unique in the programming world.
• Libraries and packages are managed via the Rubygems central library management system.
• Easy to learn, especially for beginners.
• Great support from an active online community.

 

How common is Ruby?

Ruby is very flexible and is therefore used in many areas. The language is very often used in scripting languages in the area of web servers, where the “Ruby on Rails” framework is also strongly represented. Ruby also convinces as a scripting language for complex bash scripts with its flexible syntax.

Ruby can be used as a scripting language, but it can also be compiled into bytecode used by the Java Virtual Machine. Ruby currently ranks eighth among the world’s most popular programming languages.

Ruby is often confused with Ruby on Rails, a server-side framework written in Ruby under the MIT license to implement web applications.
 

The story of Ruby

The Ruby programming language was developed by the Japanese programmer Yukihiro Matsumoto (Matz) in 1993 and published in 1995. To create a powerful language, Matsumoto took the best of his favorite programming language, Perl. The object-oriented language was also influenced by Smalltalk, Ada, Eiffel, and Lisp.

At this stage of development, many of the features known in later versions of Ruby were already in place, including object-oriented design, classes with inheritance, iterators, exception handling, and garbage collection. Initially, the names Ruby and Coral were proposed for the language, but Matsumoto chose Ruby.

The emergence of the “Ruby on Rails” framework in the 2000s has greatly influenced the development of web apps through innovative functions such as seamless creation of database tables, migrations, and rapid application development. The impact of Ruby on Rails on other web frameworks is still evident today.
 

Conclusion

Ruby was developed primarily as a universal scripting language that fully supports the various applications on a web server. The language is primarily used for web applications, standard libraries, servers, and other system utilities. Ruby has one of the great strengths of metaprogramming. Ruby is becoming increasingly popular with developers these days as new frameworks are made available for developing the application. This also helps with maintaining the code.
 

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