Ruby Impressions

[IB]

Hello, Paul:

Just a thought here...

I am new to Python too and before diving into it I spent some time
researching what language would satisfy the following:

1. Must be free open source

2. Must be true multiplatform with ports to Windows, Linux and MacOS.

3. Must have same or comparable to Perl's number of packages covering
GUI, databases, expert systems, numerical programming, web, TCP/IP and
graphics programming. The main packages must be updated on a regular
basis for new versions of the language and must have ports to all of
those major platforms.

4. Must be easily extendable and imbeddable. (Then it must have a good
selection of books on it. Otherwise you have to supply general
documentation on the language with every application where you imbed
it.)

5. Applications must be rather easy to distribute.

6. Must support OOP with possibility to mix it with functional
programming.

7. Preferrably clean and clear syntax.

The best two candidates were Perl and Python. Python won by the last
item - its syntax. (Actually, I had another item on the list - the
language should be rather common to 3D graphics community. I believe
Python is unsurpassed here. Just to name few examples - Blender,
PoserPro and trueSpace use Python. VTK has bindings for Python.)

I have not look into Ruby, though. I thought it is just Yet Another
Programming Language. It would be interesting to see how items 1-7
apply to Ruby and see how Ruby does in comparison to Python and Perl.
I would appreciate if someone will continue the thread with a follow
up on this.

--Igor