What is Ruby?

Ruby is the interpreted scripting language for quick and easy object-oriented programming. It has many features to process text files and to do system management tasks (as in Perl). It is simple, straight-forward, extensible, and portable.

We also support Ruby on Rails, a popular open-source web framework.

Common Paths:

• /usr/bin/ruby
• /usr/local/bin/ruby

Features of Ruby

		Ruby has simple syntax, partially inspired by Eiffel and Ada.
		Ruby has exception handling features, like Java or Python, to make it easy to handle errors.
		Ruby's operators are syntax sugar for the methods. You can redefine them easily.
		Ruby is a complete, full, pure object oriented language: OOL. This means all data in Ruby is an object, not in the sense of Python or Perl, but in the sense of Smalltalk: no exceptions. Example: In Ruby, the number 1 is an instance of class Fixnum.
		Ruby's OO is carefully designed to be both complete and open for improvements. Example: Ruby has the ability to add methods to a class, or even to an instance during runtime. So, if needed, an instance of one class *can* behave differently from other instances of the same class.
		Ruby features single inheritance only, *on purpose*. But Ruby knows the concept of modules (called Categories in Objective-C). Modules are collections of methods. Every class can import a module and so gets all its methods for free. Some of us think that this is a much clearer way than multiple inheritance, which is complex, and not used very often compared with single inheritance (don't count C++ here, as it has often no other choice due to strong type checking!)
		Ruby features true closures. Not just unnamed function, but with present variable bindings.
		Ruby features blocks in its syntax (code surrounded by ' ... ' or 'do' .. 'end'). These blocks can be passed to methods, or converted into closures.
		Ruby features a true mark-and-sweep garbage collector. It works with all Ruby objects. You don't have to care about maintaining reference counts in extension libraries. This is better for your health. ;-)
		Writing C extensions in Ruby is easier than in Perl or Python, due partly to the garbage collector, and partly to the fine extension API. SWIG interface is also available.
		Integers in Ruby can (and should) be used without counting their internal representation. There *are* small integers (instances of class Fixnum) and large integers (Bignum), but you need not worry over which one is used currently. If a value is small enough, an integer is a Fixnum, otherwise it is a Bignum. Conversion occurs automatically.
		Ruby needs no variable declarations. It uses simple naming conventions to denote the scope of variables. Examples: simple 'var' = local variable, '@var' = instance variable, '$var' = global variable. So it is also not necessary to use a tiresome 'self.' prepended to every instance member.
		Ruby can load extension libraries dynamically if an OS allows.
		Ruby features OS independent threading. Thus, for all platforms on which Ruby runs, you also have multithreading, regardless of if the OS supports it or not, even on MS-DOS! ;-)
		Ruby is highly portable: it is developed mostly on Linux, but works on many types of UNIX, DOS, Windows 95/98/NT, Mac, BeOS, OS/2, etc.

Ruby Web Hosting

All of our hosting packages include Ruby. We offer affordable shared and dedicated Ruby hosting packages that include many of your favorite add-ons including cPanel, PHP, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Python, SSH access and more at unbelievable prices.

We also support AJAX!

Use Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) in conjunction with your Ruby CGI scripts to power your next-generation web interfaces. AJAX is an exciting web development paradigm that allows you to extend your web pages with powerful controls, 'behind-the-scenes' client/server interaction and access to remote hosting services directly from the browser giving visitors to your site an enhanced 'single-page' experience. Ruby on Rails applications even include the popular Prototype Javascript framework for easy AJAX and DOM manipulation!

The client-side scripting component of AJAX is not limited to JavaScript; you can use any ECMAScript implementation such as Java Script or JScript within your XHTML (or HTML) and CSS pages to call your Ruby scripts using the XMLHttpRequest object. The JavaScript Document Object Model (DOM) allows you to easily modify your page content using data returned from your AJAX calls without reloading the page.

Why Host Your Ruby Scripts Here?

At A2 Web Hosting, you don't just speak with some headset phone jockey. All of
our customer support is handled by real system administrators and developers with many years of experience. We even offer a 30-day money-back guarantee to back this up. Go ahead and give us a try, you have nothing to lose!