evan_tech -- ruby on rails

Evan has a very informative and straightforward description of what Ruby is, what Ruby on Rails is and how the two differ. If you're just coming into the Rails and Ruby world, or if you're just wondering what all the fuss is, then this is worth five minutes of your life.

I especially like Evan's description of the Ruby language:

I play with and write about a lot a lot of different programming languages here, and I'm happy to say that even this many years later I still regularly return to Ruby. It's not without its flaws, but for whatever reason* Matz managed to just nail a certain design space and aesthetic and make the language really work, really flow. The people who write about the language talk about how it's optimized for fun, and that really rings true for me.

evan_tech -- ruby on rails

I saw Ruby about five years back and I really liked what I saw at the time. Earlier this year though, I finally broke my personal stalemate over Python vs Ruby and really jumped into Ruby. It turns out that my initial 'pleasant' impression was only a taste of what to come. Ruby very much has gestalt going for it. While this is simplistic, I have frequently had the thought that Ruby is to Java what Java is to C++.