Matz's Keynote from RubyConf-2008: Why Ruby?

rubyconf2008.confreaks.com

25 pointsdiptanu3 comments

The point that really drove home with this presentation was the malleability of Ruby. Rails really has made a web dev DSL out of Ruby. Rake has done the same for automation, and I think you'll soon see MacRuby become an exceptional DSL for making OS X apps.

This, I think, is the what makes Ruby such a bag of awesome. It has familiar syntax, and has borrowed a ton of great ideas from a variety of different languages to make it powerful. I've learned more from fooling around with Ruby (and the concepts it incorporates) than any CS class I've taken so far, props to Matz for making a fun language.

> Design the language suitable for the human mind

I was reticent to mod up such a short comment but that really does hit the nail on the head. I like Ruby far, far more than any other language I have ever encountered. It's probably the first programming language I have ever actually liked, even loved, using. It's the first language I thought was designed for someone like me, and although I am well aware other languages are superior in many technical ways, I just don't care.

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