Ruby off the rails

Answer 1

The only site I've done with Ruby at work is using Rails, but I'd like to try Merb.

Other than that I do a lot of little utility programs in Ruby - for instance an app that reads RSS feeds and imports new posts into a dabase.

It's fun, so I also write some dumb stuff just because it's so quick. Yesterday I wrote an app to play the Monty Hall problem 100,000 times to help a friend convince her professor that switching is the correct strategy.

Answer 2

Ruby is also used for Desktop application. Especially the use of JRuby to develop Swing desktop application.

Answer 3

I use Ruby with Sinatra which is much simpler than Rails. I did use Rails but just found that it has turned into a bit of a monster, although Rails is still amazing compared to web frameworks available for Java.

The main feature of Ruby that I love however is "eval" and "method_missing", which Rails actually uses for example in ActiveRecord so that you can use the amazing "find_by-field-name-" queries.

Answer 4

We are mainly a C++ shop, but we've found several areas where Ruby has proven quite useful. Here are a few:

• Code Generation - Built several DSLs to generate C++/Java/C# code from single input files
• Build Support
  • scripts to generate Makefiles for unix from Visual Studio Project Files
  • scripts for building projects and formatting the output for Cruise Control
  • scripts for running our unit tests and formatting the output for Cruise Control
  • scripts for manipulating Visual Studio projects and solutions from the command line
• Integration Tests - We can crank out tests much quicker and cleaner using Ruby than C++
• QA's entire testing suite is written in Ruby

Ruby is basically my go to tool for where it makes sense. And it makes sense in a lot of places.

Answer 5

We use some Ruby for file manipulation but have not been able to incorporate rails yet.

Answer 6

In Boulder there was an excellent group of Ruby users who met monthly. This point was made - that Ruby does have an existence beside its use in Rails. Plain Ruby users do exist, are begging for attention, have neat things to show, and can find each other at user group meetings.

They also had better pizza than the Python group, who met also the same day of the month. Can only pick one...