which language influenced the development of Ruby the most?

 

Ruby is often described by its creator, Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto, as a language designed for programmer happiness, balanced between functional and imperative programming. While many languages contributed to its design, Perl is widely considered the most significant influence on its syntax and philosophy.

1. Perl (The Primary Syntactical Influence)

Matz has stated that he wanted a scripting language more powerful than Perl but more object-oriented than Python. Much of Ruby’s "punctuation" and text-processing power comes directly from Perl:

• Global Variables: Variables like $:, $!, and $_ are lifted directly from Perl.

• Regular Expressions: Ruby’s first-class support for regex and its syntax (e.g., string =~ /pattern/) mirrors Perl’s approach.

• Keywords and Flow Control: The use of elsif, unless, and the "Statement Modifier" syntax (action if condition) are all Perl staples.

2. Smalltalk (The Structural Influence)

If Perl provided the "skin," Smalltalk provided the "soul." Ruby is one of the few mainstream languages that is purely object-oriented in the Smalltalk tradition.

• Everything is an Object: In Ruby, even integers and nil are objects with methods, a concept central to Smalltalk.

• Message Passing: The way Ruby handles method calls is conceptually closer to Smalltalk’s "sending a message" to an object than to C++’s function calls.

• Blocks and Closures: Ruby’s powerful use of code blocks (closures) for iteration and callbacks is a direct evolution of Smalltalk’s block syntax.

3. Lisp (The Functional Influence)

Ruby inherits its flexibility and several functional programming traits from Lisp.

• List Processing: Many of Ruby’s Enumerable methods (like map, reduce, and select) are functional concepts rooted in Lisp.

• Meta-programming: The ability for a program to modify its own structure at runtime is a hallmark of Lisp that is deeply embedded in Ruby’s "open classes" and method_missing features.

4. Other Notable Influences

While Perl, Smalltalk, and Lisp are the "Big Three," other languages filled in the gaps:

• Ada & Eiffel: Influenced Ruby's exception handling and some of its more formal object-oriented structures.

• Python: Matz looked at Python to understand how to make a language more readable than Perl, though he ultimately chose a different path for Ruby’s syntax.

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Summary of Influence

Feature	Influencing Language
Syntax & Regex	Perl
Pure Object Orientation	Smalltalk
Blocks & Iteration	Smalltalk / Lisp
Metaprogramming	Lisp
Exception Handling	Ada / Eiffel