Ruby
/ROO-bee/ · noun · Development · Origin: 1995
Definitions
A dynamic, object-oriented scripting language designed for developer happiness and productivity. Ruby's elegant syntax and the Ruby on Rails web framework sparked a revolution in web development in the mid-2000s, popularizing conventions like MVC architecture, RESTful routing, and 'convention over configuration.'
In plain English: A programming language designed to be enjoyable to write, best known for the Ruby on Rails framework that powers many popular websites.
Example: Basecamp, GitHub, Shopify, Airbnb — they all started with Ruby on Rails, and some of them still run on it.
Origin Story
The gemstone that came after Pearl
Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto began designing Ruby in 1993 in Japan. He wanted a language more powerful than Perl and more object-oriented than Python. When choosing a name, he and a colleague chatted online about names inspired by gemstones -- a nod to Perl (pearl).
They considered **Coral** but settled on **Ruby**, the birthstone for July (Matz's colleague Keiju Ishitsuka's birth month). The name also suggested something precious and beautiful, which aligned with Matz's philosophy that programming should be joyful.
Ruby remained relatively niche until 2005, when David Heinemeier Hansson released **Ruby on Rails** and demonstrated building a blog engine in 15 minutes. The framework's success made Ruby one of the most popular languages of the Web 2.0 era.
Coined by: Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto
Context: Japan, 1993 (released 1995)
Fun fact: Matz's design philosophy is 'MINASWAN' -- Matz Is Nice And So We Are Nice. The Ruby community is famous for its friendliness, which Matz considers a direct feature of the language.