Ruby Introduction

Ruby is a dynamic, reflective, object-oriented, general-purpose programming language designed by Yukihiro Matsumoto, also known as Matz. It runs on a variety of platforms, such as Windows, Mac OS, and the various versions of UNIX. This tutorial gives a complete understanding on Ruby.

Ruby is the successful combination of 

• Smalltalk's conceptual elegance,
• Python's ease of use and learning, and
• Perl's pragmatism.

Ruby is 

• A high-level programming language.
• Interpreted like Perl, Python, Tcl/TK.
• Object-oriented like Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, Java.

Why ruby ?

Ruby originated in Japan and now it is gaining popularity in US and Europe as well. The following factors contribute towards its popularity

• Easy to learn
• Open source (very liberal license)
• Rich libraries
• Very easy to extend
• Truly object-oriented
• Less coding with fewer bugs
• Helpful community

Although we have many reasons to use Ruby, there are a few drawbacks as well that you may have to consider before implementing Ruby 

• Performance Issues − Although it rivals Perl and Python, it is still an interpreted language and we cannot compare it with high-level programming languages like C or C++.
• Threading model − Ruby does not use native threads. Ruby threads are simulated in the VM rather than running as native OS threads.

Sample Ruby Code

Here is a sample Ruby code to print "Hello Ruby"

# The Hello Class
class Hello
   
   def initialize( name )
      @name = name.capitalize
   end

   def salute
      puts "Hello #{@name}!"
   end
   
end

# Create a new object
h = Hello.new("Ruby")

# Output "Hello Ruby!"
h.salute

Output − This will produce the following result 

Hello Ruby!

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