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Ruby Intro

This document provides an introduction to the Ruby programming language. It discusses why Ruby was chosen, how to get Ruby installed on different operating systems, and some key ideas about Ruby including that everything is an object, dynamic typing, dynamic dispatch, blocks, and naming conventions. It also compares Ruby to Smalltalk and notes some unusual syntax features of Ruby.

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52 views

Ruby Intro

This document provides an introduction to the Ruby programming language. It discusses why Ruby was chosen, how to get Ruby installed on different operating systems, and some key ideas about Ruby including that everything is an object, dynamic typing, dynamic dispatch, blocks, and naming conventions. It also compares Ruby to Smalltalk and notes some unusual syntax features of Ruby.

Uploaded by

ashu29435
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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CSE 413 Autumn 2008

Introduction to Ruby

Credit: Dan Grossman, CSE341


Why Ruby?
 Because:
 Pure object-oriented language
 Interesting, not entirely obvious implications
 Interesting design decisions (compare Java)
 Particularly type system, mixins, etc.
 Interesting, but not our focus
 Scripting
language
 RAILS and other frameworks
Getting Ruby
 Link to www.ruby-lang.org/en on course
web. Documentation & downloads
 Implementations:
 Windows: get the “one-click installer”
 OS X: Ruby 1.8 is part of developer tools
 Linux: Should be available from your distro. Be
sure to include the irb interactive interpreter
too.
Ruby
 Pure object-oriented: all values are objects
 Contrast w/Java primitive vs reference types
 Class-based
 Dynamically Typed
 vs static typing in Java
 Convenient reflection
Languages Compared
 One way to get an overview of what these
mean and how other languages relate

dynamically typed statically typed

functional Scheme ML (not in 413)

object-oriented Ruby Java


Ruby vs Smalltalk (1)
 Smalltalk is the classic example of a pure
OO, class-based, dynamically-typed
language
 Basicallyunchanged since the 80’s
 Tiny language, regular, can learn whole thing
 Integrated into a powerful, malleable, GUI
environment
 Uses blocks (closures) for control structures
Ruby vs Smalltalk (2)
 Ruby
 Large language, “why not” attitude
 “make programmers happy”
 Scriptinglanguage, minimal syntax
 Huge library (strings, regexps, RAILS)
 Mixins (somewhere between Java interfaces
and C++ multiple inheritance – very neat)
 Blocks and libraries for control structures and
functional-programming idioms
Ruby Key Ideas (1)
 Everything is an object (with constructor,
fields, methods)
 Every object has a class, which
determines how it responds to messages
 Dynamic typing (everything is an object)
 Dynamic dispatch (like Java; later)
 Sends to self (same as this in Java)
Ruby Key Ideas (2)
 Everything is “dynamic”
 Evaluation
can add/remove classes,
add/remove methods, add/remove fields, etc.
 Blocks are almost first-class anonymous
functions (later)
 Can convert to/from real lambdas
 And a few C/Java-like features (loops,
return,etc.)
No Variable Declarations
 If you assign to a variable, it’s mutation
 If the variable is not in scope, it is
created(!) (Don’t mispell things!!)
 Scope is the current method
 Same with fields: if you assign to a field,
that object has that field
 So different objects of the same class can
have different fields(!)
Naming Conventions
 Used to distinguish kinds of variables
 Constants and ClassNames start with caps
 local_vars and parameters start w/lower case
 @instance_variables
 @thing = thing sets and instance variable from a
local name – and creates @thing if it doesn’t exist!
 @@class_variables
 $global $VARS $CONSTANTS
Visibility. Protection?
 Fields are inaccessible outside instance
 Define accessor/mutator methods as needed
 Methods are public, protected, private
 protected: only callable from class or subclass
object
 private: only callable from self
 Both of these differ from Java
Unusual syntax
(add to this list as you discover things)

 Newlines often matter – example: don’t need


semi-colon when a statement ends a line
 Message sends (function calls) often don’t need
parentheses
 Infix operations are just message sends
 Can define operators including =, [ ]
 Classes don’t need to be defined in one place
 Loops, conditionals, classes, methods are self-
bracketing (end with “end”)
 Actually not unusual except to programmers who
have too much prior exposure to C/Java, etc.
A bit about Expressions
 Everything is an expression and produces a
value
 nil means “nothing”, but it is an object (an
instance of class NilClass)
 nil and false are false in a boolean context;
everything else is true (including 0)
 ‘strings’ are taken literally (almost)
 “strings” allow more substitutions
 including #{expressions}

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