[ruby-list:272] refman in English (preface)
From:
matz@... (Yukihiro Matsumoto)
Date:
1996-04-23 04:06:57 UTC
List:
ruby-list #272
まつもと ゆきひろ＠トヨタケーラムです．
rubyドキュメント英語化計画の一貫として，リファレンスマニュア
ルの序文を英語化しました．変な英語だと思いますが，時間があれ
ば，ちょっと呼んでみてくださいな．HTMLのままです．
--
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<H1>Preface</H1>
<p>
Ruby is the interpreted scripting language for quick and
easy object-oriented programming. It has many features to
process text files and to do system management tasks (as in
perl). It is simple, straight-forward, and extensible.
</p>
<p>
If you want a language for easy object-oriented programming,
or you don't like the PERL ugliness, or you do like the
concept of lisp, but don't like parentheses, ruby may be the
language of the choice.
</p>
<p>
Ruby's features are as follows:
</p>
<dl>
<dt> <h4>Interpreter</h4>
<dd> Ruby is the interpreted language, so you don't have
to recompile to execute the program written in ruby.
<dt> <h4>Variables has no type (dynamic typing)</h4>
<dd> Variables in ruby has no type. You don't have to
worry about variable typing. Consequently, it has
weaker compile time check.
<dt> <h4>No declaration needed</h4>
<dd> You can use variables in your ruby programs without
any declarations. Variable name itself denotes its
type (local, global, instance, etc.)
<dt> <h4>Simple syntax</h4>
<dd> Ruby has simple syntax influenced slightly from Eiffel.
<dt> <h4>No user-level memory management</h4>
<dd> Ruby has automatic memory management. Objects no
longer referenced are automatically colletcted by the
garbage collecter built in the interpreter.
<dt> <h4>Everything is object</h4>
<dd> Ruby is the pure object-oriented language from the
beginning. Even basic objects like intergers are
treated uniformly as objects.
<dt> <h4>Class, inheritance, methods</h4>
<dd> Of cource, as a OO language, ruby has basic features
like classes, inheritance, methods, etc.
<dt> <h4>Singleton methods</h4>
<dd> Ruby has the feature to define methods for cetain
specified object. For example, you can define a
press-button action for certain GUI button by
defining a singleton method for the button. Or, you
can make up your own prototype based object system
(if you want to).
<dt> <h4>Mixin by modules</h4>
<dd> Ruby does not have the multiple inheritance
intentionally. IMO, It is the source of
confusing. Instead, ruby has modules to share the
implementation across the inheritance tree. It is
often called "Mixin."
<dt> <h4>Iterater</h4>
<dd> Ruby has iteraters for loop anstraction.
<dt> <h4>Closure</h4>
<dd> In ruby, you can objectify the procedure.
<dt> <h4>Text processing and regular expression</h4>
<dd> Ruby has bunch of text processing features like in perl.
<dt> <h4>Bignums</h4>
<dd> With built-in bignums, you can calculate
factorial(400), for example.
<dt> <h4>Exception handling</h4>
<dd> As in Java(tm).
<dt> <h4>Direct access to OS</h4>
<dd> Ruby can call most of system calls on UNIX boxes. It
can be used in system programming.
<dt> <h4>Dynamic loading</h4>
<dd> You can load object files into ruby interpreter
on-the-fly, on most of UNIXes.
</dl>
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