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Ruby is a dynamic, object-oriented programming language known for its simplicity, elegance, and productivity. It was created in the mid-1990s by Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto in Japan. Ruby's design philosophy focuses on the principle of "optimization for developer happiness," aiming to make programming a joyful and efficient experience for developers. Here's everything you need to know about Ruby:

Object-Oriented: Ruby is a fully object-oriented language, meaning everything in Ruby is an object, including numbers, strings, and even classes. It follows the principles of object-oriented programming (OOP), such as encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism.

Dynamic Typing: Ruby is dynamically-typed, which means you don't need to explicitly declare the data type of a variable. The type of a variable is determined at runtime.

Interpreted Language: Ruby is an interpreted language, which means that code is executed directly without the need for a separate compilation step.

Readable and Expressive Syntax: Ruby's syntax is designed to be readable and expressive, making it easy to write and understand code. It is often praised for its clean and natural language-like constructs.

Gems and RubyGems: Ruby has a rich ecosystem of third-party libraries and tools, known as "gems." RubyGems is the package manager for Ruby that allows developers to easily install, manage, and share these gems.

Rails Framework: Ruby on Rails, often referred to as just Rails, is a popular web application framework built on top of Ruby. Rails follows the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture and provides conventions to streamline web development.

Blocks and Procs: Ruby supports blocks and procs, which are anonymous functions that can be passed as arguments to methods. They enable powerful functional programming constructs in the language.

Metaprogramming: Ruby is known for its strong support of metaprogramming, allowing developers to modify and extend the behavior of classes and objects during runtime.

Community and Culture: Ruby has a vibrant and welcoming community. The Ruby community values open-source contributions, collaboration, and sharing knowledge.

Cross-Platform: Ruby is a cross-platform language, which means it runs on various operating systems, including Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Standard Library: Ruby comes with a robust standard library that provides a wide range of built-in classes and modules for common tasks like file I/O, networking, and data processing.

Maturity and Stability: Ruby has been around for several decades and has a stable and mature codebase, which makes it reliable for building production-grade applications.

Ruby is used in a wide range of applications, from web development to scripting and automation. It is known for its "developer-friendly" approach, allowing developers to focus on their code logic rather than boilerplate syntax. The combination of Ruby's readability, flexibility, and community support has made it a favorite language for many developers worldwide.