why’s Guide to Ruby

Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby

When you program a computer, you have to “speak” in a language your computer understands: a programming language. There are lots and lots of different languages out there, and many of them are excellent. In this tutorial I chose to use my favorite programming language, Ruby.

Aside from being my favorite, Ruby is also the easiest programming language I have seen (and I’ve seen quite a few). In fact, that’s the real reason I’m writing this tutorial: I didn’t decide to write a tutorial, and then choose Ruby because it’s my favorite; instead, I found Ruby to be so easy that I decided there really ought to be a good beginner’s tutorial which uses it. It’s Ruby’s simplicity which prompted this tutorial, not the fact that it’s my favorite. (Writing a similar tutorial using another language, like C++ or Java, would have required hundreds and hundreds of pages.) But don’t think that Ruby is a beginner’s language just because it is easy! It is a powerful, professional-strength programming language if ever there was one.