Ruby is an open-source dynamic object-oriented interpreted language created by Yukihiro Matsumoto (Matz) in 1993.
Ruby is an open-source dynamic object-oriented interpreted language that combines the good bits from Perl, Smalltalk and Lisp. It supports multiple programming paradigms. Ruby's primary purpose is to "help every programmer in the world to be productive, and to enjoy programming, and to be happy." Ruby focuses on simplicity and productivity.
Ruby was initially conceived on February 24, 1993 by Yukihiro Matsumoto ('Matz') and version 1.0 was released in 1996. The current stable version is Version 2.0.0, released on its twentieth anniversary on February 24, 2013.
Ruby's mindshare spiked around 2005 due to Ruby on Rails, an MVC (Model, View, Controller) framework for building web applications and usage continues to grow as of 2012.
Ruby supports multiple programming paradigms, including functional, object oriented and imperative. It also has a dynamic type system and automatic memory management; it is therefore similar in varying respects to Smalltalk, Python, Perl, Lisp, Dylan, and CLU.
You can download the Ruby source code from http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/downloads/ or from GitHub.
Alternative Ruby implementations
- JRuby, an implementation of Ruby on top of Java with access to the JVM
- Rubinius, an implementation in C that is used for higher performance
- Ruby Enterprise Edition, a branch of MRI Ruby made for efficiency
- MacRuby, an implementation of Ruby on Apples Objective-C and Cocoa frameworks
- MagLev an implementation on top of VMWare's GemStone virtual machine
- IronRuby is an implementation of Ruby on top of Microsoft's .NET CLR/DLR platform
- Cardinal is an implementation of Ruby for the Parrot Virtual Machine
- Topaz is an implementation of Ruby written in Python, on top of RPython
- RubyMotion is an implementation of Ruby to develop native iOS and macOS applications
Knowledge Base
Where to start
- Getting Started with Ruby Development
- How can I get better at/learn more about Ruby?
- Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby
Interactive Ruby learning
- Codeacademy - Learn the fundamentals of Ruby and dynamic programming
Tools
Ruby Programming Books
Free- Learn Ruby The Hard Way
- MacRuby: The Definitive Guide
- Mr. Neighborly's Humble Little Ruby Book
- Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide
- Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby
- Ruby Monk
- The Ruby Programming Language by David Flanagan, Yukihiro Matsumoto
- Well grounded rubyist
- The Ruby Way
More information:
Reference: adapted from Stack Overflow SE