Ruby is a dynamic, high-level, open-source programming language focused on simplicity and productivity. It features a clean, expressive syntax designed to read like natural language, allowing developers to write elegant and maintainable code with minimal effort.

Created by Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto in the mid-1990s, Ruby blends concepts from languages like Perl, Smalltalk, and Lisp, emphasizing developer happiness and flexibility.

Ruby supports:

• Object-oriented programming (everything is an object)

• Functional programming features

• Dynamic typing

• Metaprogramming, allowing programs to modify themselves

• A large ecosystem of libraries (gems)

Ruby is widely known for powering the popular web framework Ruby on Rails, which enables rapid full-stack web development and influenced many modern web frameworks.