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Sinatra, a Ruby "micro framework" for developing Web applications, is hot stuff! Despite being over a year since we first mentioned Sinatra (as used on a 100 line blogging app called Reprise), only now does Sinatra seem to have reached critical mass - it's on the cusp of becoming really popular. This is a good time, then, to check it out and see where it could fit into your own projects (with the new Rails Metal functionality (in edge/2.3 only) you can ever…

Note: This post is a part of Ruby Inside’s Top 10 in 2008 series. To learn more or see the other awards, read this introductory post.

Jeremy McAnally - One of Ruby’s Busiest Hackers of 2008

Jeremy McAnally (Twitter @jeremymcanally) is a Huntsville, Alabama based Ruby developer who has been developing software for about 10 years and now works for popular consultancy ENTP. He takes Top Hitter (no, not Hitler!) for being, in Ruby Inside's opinion, one of the most consistent releasers, challengers,…

Whenever you run a Ruby program, Ruby's parser processes the code and turns it into an "abstract syntax tree" (an AST) which can then be either turned into bytecode for YARV (on Ruby 1.9) or be interpreted immediately (as with Ruby 1.8).

While a programming language allows programmers to represent the logic of a program in a way that's both suitable for developers and computers to easily understand, abstract syntax trees act as a low-level tree representation of the program's mechanics.…

Note: This post is a part of Ruby Inside's Top 10 in 2008 series. To learn more or see the other awards, read this introductory post.

Satish Talim - Ruby Evangelist and Facilitator

Satish Talim is an established software development expert (over 30 years of experience in the industry!) based in Pune, India. He's most recognized in the Ruby community for his ongoing work with his RubyLearning group of sites. He's also built up a strong following on Twitter @IndianGuru.

2008 has been an interesting year for Ruby. Some people are going to remember 2008 as a snarky, uncivil year, filled with rants (okay, okay, Zed's infamous rant was the last day of 2007 but he updated it in 2008!), call outs, lay-offs and bitchiness. There has been an increase in negative articles about Ruby, even from prominent Rubyists. Back in November, KirinDave said that Ruby is in "a very bad place" and lacks momentum.. as if!

Back in the real world, Ruby has been doing…

Back in December 2007, Antonio Cangiano presented The Great Ruby Shootout, a large set of benchmarks of then-current Ruby implementations (Ruby 1.8.5, YARV - early Ruby 1.9, JRuby, Ruby.NET, Rubinius, XRuby, and Cardinal). Even then, despite Ruby 1.9's infancy and experimental nature, Ruby 1.9 came out as about three times faster than Ruby 1.8.5 - while other implementations were barely faster than 1.8.5.

It was a few months ago that Rubysophic - a Bay Area startup working on products relating to Ruby diagnostics - came quietly into the Ruby scene, launching their first product, RubyRun Community Edition, a free, standalone application-performance diagnostic tool. While the most obvious use is with Rails applications, RubyRun works on any Ruby code (within reason) though it's primarily suited to Web applications.

I spoke with a few developers at Rubysophic recently to find out more about RubyRun and why they…

Everyone's favorite Australian Ruby developer, Dr. Nic Williams, has put together a handy slide presentation called How to Package Your Ruby Code where he demonstrates how he packages his various bits of Ruby code using RubyGems. His process is backed by his own NewGem, a library that generates a framework for a new Ruby gem, and Hoe by Ryan Davis.

In his explanatory blog post, Nic also ponders Perl's CPAN (a gigantic archive of Perl modules) and the module installation process it offers. When…

If you read Ruby Inside in 2006, you might remember our 2006 Ruby Advent Calendar. It featured the first look at the then-new AWS::S3 library, offered a Ruby code formatter for blog posts (which I still use here!), some Ruby wallpapers, and a lot more.

2007 had no Ruby advent calendar, unfortunately, but this year Lakshan Perera, a Sri Lankan Ruby developer, has put together a good-looking 2008 Ruby Advent Calendar. Day one looked at rolling out a Sinatra and Sequel powered blog.…

It's time to thank those great companies and individuals who help keep Ruby Inside (and often other Ruby sites) going. Note: All descriptions and notes are written by Ruby Inside and are not directly influenced by the sponsors. As such, any opinions stated are those of Ruby Inside and not necessarily shared by the sponsor!

New Relic - Rails Performance Monitoring Systems

New Relic provides high-end performance monitoring solutions for Rails applications and they include 37signals and Shopify amongst their customers (very high praise indeed!)…