Darren Crotchett wrote:
[snip]
> Also, is the Ruby community experiencing a lot of growth or what?  
> 
> TIA,
> Darren 
> 
> 

Growth can be measured in a number of ways.

I'll just mention 2 that come immediately to mind.

1. number of books on the topic

The lack of English books and documentation were Ruby's greatest area of 
weakness compared to other languages.  About 5 years ago, I'd be 
hard-pressed to find a single Ruby book written in English.

But that has changed.  We now have Programming Ruby 2nd Ed. which is hot 
off the press.  More well-known series of tech books now include Ruby 
such as "Ruby in a Nutshell" and "Teach Yourself Ruby in 21 days".  At 
this rate, I wouldn't be surprised to see a "Ruby Bible" and "Ruby for 
Dummies" soon.  There are at least a half-dozen English books on Ruby 
now, all published within the past few years.

When I visit Borders bookstore, I still don't see Ruby books on the 
shelves (only one or two Ruby books--and infrequently).

2.  number of people in the irc channel

Another decent indicator is the number of people in the irc channel.  I 
think the #ruby-lang channel has steadily grown this year.  I'm guessing 
it'll hit around 200 people before this time next year if it continues 
growing at this rate.

Armed with better English documentation, growth rate should accelerate. 
I don't know the status of other non-Japenese docs but I hope they 
improve as well.