# What Ruby Is and Why Developers Love It — Ruby

Source: https://www.geekswithgeeks.com/en/ruby/f-what

> Describe Ruby's philosophy, uses and implementation.

## Optimised for programmer happiness

**Ruby** is a dynamic, object-oriented language created by Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto and first released in 1995. Its stated goal is **programmer happiness**: code that reads naturally, with flexible syntax and few surprises. In Ruby, **everything is an object**, including numbers, `nil` and classes themselves, and methods can be called with or without parentheses. Ruby is best known for **Ruby on Rails**, the web framework behind GitHub, Shopify, Basecamp and many startups, but it is also used for scripting, automation, DevOps tools (Chef, Vagrant and Homebrew's formulae are Ruby) and static site generators (Jekyll). The reference implementation is **CRuby (MRI)**, which includes **YJIT**, a just-in-time compiler that significantly speeds up real applications, and alternatives include **JRuby** on the JVM and **TruffleRuby**. Ruby 3.x added pattern matching, Ractors for parallelism, a Fiber scheduler for non-blocking I/O, endless methods, hash shorthand, `Data` value objects and the `it` block parameter. A new Ruby version is traditionally released every Christmas.

## Everything is an object

Numbers, strings, nil, arrays and even classes are objects that respond to methods.

![Several different shaped icons (a number, quote marks, an empty circle, a list) each attached by a line to a common rounded object outline.](assets/figures/ruby/section-1-map.svg) — Figure 1.1 — Ruby's uniform object model.

## A first taste of Ruby

Method calls on literals, blocks and string interpolation.

```ruby
name = "Asha"
visits = 3

puts "Hello, #{name}! You have visited #{visits} times."

5.times { |i| puts "Line #{i + 1}" }        # integers are objects with methods

prices = [49.5, 120, 199]
total = prices.sum
puts "Total: #{total.round(2)}"
puts "Expensive items: #{prices.select { |p| p > 100 }.inspect}"

puts nil.to_a.inspect                          # even nil is an object: []
puts 42.class                                  # Integer

# run with:  ruby hello.rb
```

## Read code aloud

Ruby code like `orders.select(&:paid?).sum(&:total)` is meant to read almost like English. When a line does not read naturally, there is often a more idiomatic way to write it.

**Quiz:** Which statement about Ruby is true?

- [x] Everything, including numbers and nil, is an object
- [ ] Only some values are objects
- [ ] Ruby is statically typed
- [ ] Ruby cannot be used for web development

*Answer:* Everything, including numbers and nil, is an object. Ruby has a uniform object model: every value responds to methods.