Abstract:
One of the most exciting aspects of Ruby is the overwhelming number of
open source projects that have been contributed by the community for
all of us to enjoy. As of January, 2008 Rubyforge sports over 2500
projects with over 19 million gem downloads. And that's just gems. It
doesn't account for the millions of checkouts from source control as
developers contribute back to other projects and install plugins into
their own applications.
In this session we're going to take a look under the hood of a few of
these Ruby libraries. We'll crack them open and see what it is that
makes them tick. By the end of the session you should have a basic
understanding of why gems are so much fun to write; why they are so
easy to share; and how they exploit the Ruby language to make the
lives of other developers easier and more enjoyable.
Abstract:
Ruby is often referred to as an Object Oriented Scripting language. It
made its first in-roads in Java and .NET circles in the form of tools
like WATIR, a Ruby library that automates the act of stepping through
a web application in a browser with code written in Ruby in a simple
text file. The appeal was found in its simplicity and minimal setup,
and the fact that it was Object Oriented was a nice plus.
Over time, it has been Ruby's OO nature that has attracted more and
more developers to explore it. Not just for scripting tests for web
applications, but for development of mission-critical applications for
the web and the desktop.
Ruby is as powerful as it is simple and expressive. But between
questions about speed and security and the substantial investment that
most Java and .NET shops have invested in their platforms over the
years, it had a difficult time making it into companies that didn't
operate with an "early adopter" mindset.
Step ahead a couple of years and enter JRuby and IronRuby. With these
two implementations of Ruby, for Java and .NET respectively,
developers working on these platforms can begin to exploit the beauty
and simplicity of Ruby to deliver highly readable and maintainable
code and run it on the platforms they know.
David Chelimsky and Aslak Hellesøy came to Ruby from Java and .NET. In
this session we're going to show you some of the things that attracted
us to Ruby in the first place, and some of the things that we've grown
to love through deeper understanding. We're going to ask you to solve
some problems in the languages you know, and then work with you to
solve them in the language we've grown to love.
What you'll leave with is a high level understanding of the
differences and similarities between Ruby and Java/C#, an appreciation
for the choices made by Ruby's creator, and a sense of how you might
be able to fit Ruby into your development process.
