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Why on Ruby

Ruby is a programming language - lightweight, open source. Like Perl or Python, except it’s from Japan. I’ve known a few enthusiasts, but have never been able to place it firmly in the firmament of tools.
Even as I write this, I say, hmmm - I know python because of the Zope project. Where do I know Ruby from? What made it interesting? Bitsplitter is on his way to Mardi Gras (poor foolish humans) otherwise, I’d have him explain it to me.
All this comes up from the most delightful little book, Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby. Open source itself (under the Creative Commons licencse, interesting since we just heard Larry speak yesterday), this book fits my entertainment and education goals perfectly. The online version, at least, is chock full of weird little comics and cartoons. Check it out for yourself and see if you can find a way to make Ruby useful in your life and work.

I’ll probably pick it up myself. I’ve been wanting to script vim for spell checking and other things I take for granted in things like MSWord - and it might be a good chance to learn about Ruby instead of going back to Perl.