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| Ruby user's guide | What is ruby? |

Ruby is "an interpreted scripting language for quick and easy object-oriented programming"; what does this mean?

interpreted scripting language:

- ability to make operating system calls directly
- powerful string operations and regular expressions
- immediate feedback during development

quick and easy:

- variable declarations are unnecessary
- variables are not typed
- syntax is simple and consistent
- memory management is automatic

object oriented programming:

- everything is an object
- classes, inheritance, methods, etc.
- singleton methods
- mixin by module
- iterators and closures

also:

- multiple precision integers
- exception processing model
- dynamic loading
- threads

If you are unfamiliar with some of the concepts above, read on, and don't worry. The mantra of the ruby language is quick and easy.

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