Um... I didn't write the example. I took it from a site that encouraged developers familiar with a language to submit solutions.

The developer of the Java solution posted something I'd consider reasonably representative of the Java I would likely encounter from most Java programmers and I while I have almost no personal experience with Ruby, I have the feeling the Ruby solution is reasonably close to what Ruby programmers write.

While you can write concise code in any language, it seems few Java programmers bother to.

Perhaps you should submit your solution to the original site: http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/