The document provides an overview of what the author loves about Ruby, summarizing several key features in 3 sentences or less: Ruby allows for concise and clear code with less ceremony than other languages like Java. It features an expressive syntax, powerful enumerable processing methods, and the ability to pass code blocks to functions as arguments. Ruby treats everything as an object, including primitive types like integers, and includes features like ranges, regular expressions, and metaprogramming capabilities.

1. Who I Am Keith Bennett, keithrbennett at gmail.com

2. Software Developer living near Washington, DC, USA

3. Original hometown is New York City

4. 25+ years experience, focusing on Ruby and Java, currently studying Android development

5. Technical Interests: Ruby, Android, Clojure

6. Other Interests: Travel, Music, Study of Massage and Asian and European Languages

7. Obligatory Joke, Part 1 A DBA walks into a bar, steps in front of two tables and says...

8. Obligatory Joke, Part 2 ...may I join you?

9. Please... ...ask me to slow down if I speak too quickly.

10. ...ask me again if I forget.

11. ...ask questions if anything I say is not clear.

12. ...feel free to share your own observations and experiences.

13. What I Love About Ruby: Overview Conciseness and Clarity, Not Ceremony (high signal to noise ratio)

14. Expressive Syntax

15. Powerful Enumerable Processing

16. Code Blocks and Closures

17. Everything’s an Object, even 1 and nil

18. Ranges

19. Regular Expressions

20. JRuby

21. IRB

22. OS Scripting Support

23. Metaprogramming

24. Conciseness and Clarity, Not Ceremony: Main Program Java: public class HelloWorld { public static void main(String args) { System.out.println("Hello world!"); } } Ruby: puts “Hello world!”

25. Conciseness and Clarity, Not Ceremony: Instance Variable Access Java: private String name; public String getName() { return name; } public void setName(String name) { this.name = name; } Ruby: attr_accessor :name

26. Conciseness and Clarity, Not Ceremony: List/Array Subtraction Java: public static List subtractList(List minuendList, List subtrahendList) { List differenceList = new ArrayList(); for (Object o : minuendList) { if (! subtrahendList.contains(o)) { differenceList.add(o); } } return differenceList; } Ruby minuendList – subtrahendList

27. Conciseness and Clarity, Not Ceremony: List Manipulation Java: public static List<Integer> calcDoubles(List<Integer> inputList) { List<Integer> outputList = new ArrayList<Integer>(); for (Integer n : inputList) { outputList.add(2 * n); } return outputList; } Ruby: def calc_doubles(input_list) input_list.map { |n| 2 * n } end