Hi,

These are my experiences.  I hope that this answers your question:

I come from a Perl background.  I liked Perl because it was a very 
flexible and expressive language.  However, there were two problems with 
Perl that made me lookf or an alternative:

*  Perl is a very cryptic language, and it's hard to write nice-looking 
and clear code.
*  Perl's object orientation is difficult and akward.
*  Perl is hard to scale for larger projects.

I looked at Python many times.  I *tried* to like Python, but ultimatelly 
I found it very restrictive.  Once I grew used to how easy it is to do 
stuff with Perl, I just couldn't adapt to a restrictive language.

When I found Ruby, I quickly fell in love with it.  This is why:

*  It retains *all* the power and flexibility of Perl.
*  The things that are easy in Perl, are just as easy in Ruby, or easier.
*  Ruby scales very well from the smallest to the largest projects.
*  Ruby addresses the things I disliked about Perl:
   -  Ruby's object-orientation is unparalleled.  It even surpases 
      Python's.  I never truly understood object orientation until I saw
      it in Ruby.  Then it seemed so natural!
   -  Ruby is a surprisingly clear language.  It is easy to write
      nice-looking code.

After I learned Ruby, I found other things that made me want to *stay* 
with the language:

*  Ruby is incredibly well-designed.  For example:  I was a Perl hacker 
for years, whereas I've only used Ruby for a few months.  Today I 
understand the Ruby internals much better than I ever understood Perl's 
(and I tried *harder* with Perl).

*  Related to the above:  Ruby is much easier to extend than Perl.  I've 
written C extensions for both Perl and Ruby.  There is imply no 
comparison.

*  Ruby adds a great deal of powerful features that would never have 
occurred to me as a Perl hacker (for instance, iterators and code 
blocks).

In summary.  Ruby is: clear, easy to use, easy to understand, flexible and 
very powerful.

The only drawback that I see:
-----------------------------
     It's not as fast as Perl.

Why I don't care:
-----------------
1. In 99% of cases, I save more time by writing a program in Ruby than
   I would gain by executing it in Perl.

2. For the other 1%, I might write a C extensions and then it'll be
   *faster* than Perl.

Best.
Daniel.

On Fri, Jan 31, 2003 at 01:22:27AM +0900, Nicolay Vasiliev wrote:
> Hello!
> 
> I am only interesting of Ruby. I need to know: why did you choose this
> prog. language. Which benefits gives it for you in comparison with
> another languages? If you leave any language or maybe prog.
> environment and went to Ruby - again why?
> 
> Thank you all.
> 
> Nicolay Vasiliev.
> 

-- 
Daniel Carrera
Graduate Teaching Assistant.  Math Dept.
University of Maryland.  (301) 405-5137