The SquizLog

Joining the Ruby Community

As Brian McCallister has pointed out, the second edition of Programming Ruby has just shipped. Having recently been reminded about Ruby by Charles Miller, I have decided to embark on a journey to learn Ruby.

On a technical level Ruby appeals to me already. It is a pure OO language and includes features such as closures which exist in Smalltalk, my first OO language.

Then there is the philosophy of Ruby's creator, Yukihiro Matsumoto. Included in his preface to the first edition of the book is this paragraph:

I believe that the purpose of life is, at least in part, to be happy. Based on this belief, Ruby is designed to make programming not only easy but also fun. It allows you to concentrate on the creative side of programming, with less stress. If you don't believe me, read this book and try Ruby. I'm sure you'll find out for yourself.

I'm a sucker for experiencing happiness and agree with the notion that programming should be as much fun as possible.

So, Ruby here I come!

Posted to Philosophy, Software Development by Keith Pitty