Ruby is a dynamic, reflective, general purpose object-oriented programming language that combines syntax inspired by Perl with Smalltalk-like features. Ruby originated in Japan during the mid-1990s and was initially developed and designed by Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto.
Ruby supports multiple programming paradigms, including functional, object oriented, imperative and reflection. It also has a dynamic type system and automatic memory management; it is therefore similar in varying respects to Python, Perl, Lisp, Dylan, and CLU.
The standard 1.8.6 (stable) implementation is written in C, as a single-pass interpreted language. There is currently no specification of the Ruby language, so the original implementation is considered to be the de facto reference. As of 2008, there are a number of complete or upcoming alternative implementations of the Ruby language, including YARV, JRuby, Rubinius, IronRuby, and MacRuby, each of which takes a different approach, with JRuby and IronRuby providing just-in-time compilation functionality. The official 1.9 (development) branch uses YARV, and so will 2.0, and will eventually supersede the slower Ruby MRI.
Ruby was conceived on February 24, 1993 by Yukihiro Matsumoto who wished to create a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming. According to Matsumoto he "wanted a scripting language that was more powerful than Perl, and more object-oriented than Python. That's why I decided to design my own language".
Read more about Ruby at Wikipedia.
I am developing in Ruby since 2005. As it's popularity is growing in the past few years, there are more and more projects that need to be developed partially or completely using Ruby. I have strong experience in Ruby and I am proficient in:
Web programming,
Command line programming,
System administration - installing and setting up.