Gully Foyle <nospam / nospamnospamnospam.com> wrote in message news:<hXHKc.38807$eH1.18448437 / newssvr28.news.prodigy.com>...
> I am currently using C++ as my compiled language but fell in love with 
> Ruby recently :)
> 
> Which compiled language is the closest to ruby?  Are there any that are 
> object-oriented and have support for blocks/closures?

What do you really mean by "compiled"?  Are you interested in
producing small, standalone executables?  Or producing a library that
you can easily link to from C?  Or is that you want to have more
static error checking (and if so, how much)?  Or do you just mean
"fast"?  (And in that case, fast for what?  Fast as in integer and
floating point performance comparable to C, or fast as in 100x faster
than Ruby for method dispatch, or... ?)

The distinction between "compiled" and "interpreted" is a pretty
irrelevant one (and in fact these aren't mutually exclusive - a common
architecture for language platforms these days is to compile to
bytecode, which is then interpreted).  If you want a sensible answer,
ask a more specific question.

Cheers,
Avi