Ruby by Example

Java

For the purposes of this discussion, Sun Microsystems’ Java is a moderately complex, object-oriented language similar to C. Java has both strong and static typing. In one way, Java is more object oriented than Ruby is: A programmer coding in Java must use an object-oriented paradigm for his own programs. On the other hand, Java is less object oriented than Ruby is in the way that it implements its own built-in features. For example, to get the absolute value of the integer 100 in Java, you would do this:

Math.abs(100)

This means that the programmer wants to use a method called abs, which is associated with Math, to perform that method’s action on the integer 100. The equivalent operation in Ruby would be performed as follows:

100.abs

Using Ruby’s ...