Poll : Do you use Ruby?

Good morning

First my poll, then the explication:

Do you use the Ruby programming language to develop stuff like simple scripts or full-blown applications, even when limited to the use of Web-frameworks or minor modifications of existing code?

I am sometimes refraining from asking a question, believing that nobody is interested in Ruby anyway, these days.

I use the shell, (usually bash), sed & (g)awk for anything that I may need doing.

No, but what I've seen from it, it looks like a Python-spinoff. Or vice verse, depending on which came first. Or maybe they evolved paralelly.

i thought ruby came 1st but i could be wrong, alsoni dont use it as such but it is installed as its a dep for other stuff,like fatmac above i use grep sed awk etc.

I don't quite know how to answer your question as phrased, but I have indeed used Ruby – because (as usual ...) I briefly had to support yet another legacy project where the original programmer had used it. The language seemed to be very competently designed, in the sense that it certainly "did the job that was given to it," and did not give me any grief. (Yay!) The language did what the OP had intended, and I simply "fixed his work a little" after he had gone on to greener pastures.

I guess I'd say that it is "well-made, but not outstanding." It seems to me to "plow a well-plowed furrow, maybe a little better than the last plow did."

But ... full disclosure ... I have encountered "oh, so many" 'programming languages' by now. The last one to truly impress me was the GNU variant of Prolog: "gprolog." Which of course is not general-purpose.

My own brief experience with Ruby was not a positive experience, but in fairness may not be typical.

Some years ago, when Ruby was the new fashion (in my own perception), I was involved with salvage of a troubled project which brought an existing Ruby dependence. It was my first exposure to Ruby so I began by purchasing the pickaxe book.

In the end, much of the reason the project needed salvage was due to the portions implemented with Ruby. Whether that was due to the language, square peg / round hole or just poorly written code I cannot say with certainty. But removal of the Ruby dependence and rewrite of those features was the fix.

But the thing that turned me off most about Ruby was a quote from the originator of the language found in the Preface of the book as I recall (may have been first chapter or two, I no longer give the book space on my shelf). When explaining why he wrote Ruby, and its advantages, it all came down to something like this, "Because I can".

That, and my experience at the time, made such an impression on me that I decided to avoid Ruby entirely in future, which I have done, "Because I can", and because I apparently lose nothing by doing so.

Your mileage may vary, of course.

Of course, @astrogeek, lots of problems can start to surface in any project when more-than-one programming language is introduced into it. And this unfortunately happens a lot. In my experience, the problem is not so much with any one of the languages, but with differences in the contributed libraries upon which every language system necessarily relies. This is not only "instant differences" between how to packages do the "same" thing, but also the simple reality that most of these languages are interpreted, not compiled, and the source-code to the packages is likely being updated by the vendor in ways that are not under the control of the project.

I find it and rails to both be great languages and implementations, respectively, and was actually first introduced to it on this site when someone punched out a very simplistic one-liner
to obliterate my awk solution and hence piqued my interest

I would liken it to a python / perl mix (it is a post python language)

Maybe it's the Ruby/rails aspect but I kind of got the impression is was a more modern alternative to php and primarily targetted at web stuff — which is not really my thing — so I never got into it.

@grail, the Perl language historically started out that way, when a guy named Larry Wall bumped into the limitations of "awk" and thought that he could invent a better Tool.

I suppose that every new programming language starts out this way.

It is a pity that Ruby and Rails are often synonymous. Not only are there other Web-frameworks for Ruby but as a complete language it can be used for just anything. I do not care, btw. if you like or dislike Ruby. My objective is to bother you less with questions that you would not be prepared to answer on LQ as they can be very language-specific. I can be very approximative when helping out others, myself

Ruby was basically the very first language I became very good at (I don't even say senior or master, just good). The language has potentials. I coded my entire business logic in Ruby (using Rails framework) and works perfectly. I implement most of my ideas as quick as possible with Ruby since I can think ruby.
Therefore, yes I use ruby.

I use Ruby on Ubuntu. There is just apt-get install ruby-full and then there is what I did, rbenv and Ruby2d. Ubuntu also supports native Ruby. All as per one might be maybe or might not be maybe, maybe or maybe not, maybe.

The integration of Ruby with Rails was a fine bit of software engineering. The Rails framework is impressive.

Ruby presented no problem at all in the project that I spoke of earlier, which was overall refreshingly “clean” and well designed. My predecessor had done his job well. And left behind thorough project documentation.