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The Linux Journal offers help with the popular programming language Ruby.
What's behind all the Ruby hype? Reuven walks us through a couple of examples to let the code speak for itself.
About ten years ago, back when I was working in New York, friends of mine showed me something that knocked my socks off-a program that actually ran inside of the Web browser, without any need for pressing submit. It was sleek, fun to use and seemed like a major paradigm shift. We all were excited about what this new "Java" language and its applets would mean for Web development. Although we didn't quite know where or how it would end, we talked about nothing else for some time.
In the decade since then, many different technologies have been hyped as "the next best thing" or "the tool you need to make better Web sites". Indeed, we constantly are bombarded with claims of newer, better, faster and cheaper ways to develop software. Some of these promises have panned out, but a trade-off usually is associated with them. For example, developing Web applications in Zope is indeed quite easy-once you get over the learning curve. Web services are fine, until you start to deal with complex data structures across different platforms.
You can imagine my surprise, then, when I began to see another "best new method" coming over the horizon-but this one was touted by people I respect, who normally don't give in to hype so quickly. I'm speaking, of course, about "Ruby on Rails", an object-oriented system for creating and deploying Web applications. For several months now, I have been reading about how wonderful Rails is and how it makes Web development utterly simple.
I had been meaning to try Ruby as a language for some time, and the growth of Rails has given me an opportunity to do so. This month, we take an initial look at Ruby, examining simple ways to create Web applications with the basic Ruby language and libraries. In my next article, we will look at Rails and see how it stacks up against other, more established frameworks.
What Is Ruby? Full tutorial
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