Eloquent Ruby

Chapter 1. Write Code That Looks Like Ruby

Some years ago I did a long stint working on a huge document management system. The interesting thing about this job was that it was a joint development project: Part of the system was developed by my group here in the United States and part was built by a team of engineers in Tokyo. I started out doing straight programming, but slowly my job changed—I found myself doing less and less programming and more and more translating. Whenever a Japanese–American meeting collided with the language barrier my phone would ring, and I would spend the rest of the afternoon explaining to Mr. Smith just exactly what Hosokawa-San was trying to say, and vice versa. What is remarkable is that my command of Japanese ...