On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 8:52 PM, Ben
Christensen<benjchristensen / gmail.com> wrote:
> -- May I then ask what made you consider Ruby in the first place?
>
> The reason I'm considering it is because I don't want to blindly choose
> Java just because it's the default.
>
> As for why Ruby and not Erlang, Scala, Groovy etc -- the honest answer
> is because Ruby is getting so much attention these days, to the point of
> religious fervor amongst many I speak to that I need to take an
> objective look at it and what it does well.

If speed and static typing are must-haves, and if you have already got
a lot invested in the jvm, scala is very well worth a look. It also
has some features that let you write concise, maintainable code in
much the same way that you could with ruby.
http://www.cordinc.com/blog/2009/04/combinatorial-iterators-in-jav.html
is an interesting look at the same task implemented in all three
languages.

martin