# What is Ruby?¶ ↑

Ruby is an interpreted object-oriented programming language often used for web development. It also offers many scripting features to process plain text and serialized files, or manage system tasks. It is simple, straightforward, and extensible.

## Features of Ruby¶ ↑

- Simple Syntax

- Normal Object-oriented Features (e.g. class, method calls)

- Advanced Object-oriented Features (e.g. mix-in, singleton-method)

- Operator Overloading

- `Exception` Handling

- Iterators and Closures

- Garbage Collection

- Dynamic Loading of `Object` Files (on some architectures)

- Highly Portable (works on many Unix-like/POSIX compatible platforms as well as Windows, macOS, etc.) cf. docs.ruby-lang.org/en/master/maintainers_md.html#label-Platform+Maintainers

## How to get Ruby¶ ↑

For a complete list of ways to install Ruby, including using third-party tools like rvm, see:

www.ruby-lang.org/en/downloads/

You can download release packages and the snapshot of the repository. If you want to download whole versions of Ruby, please visit www.ruby-lang.org/en/downloads/releases/.

### Download with Git¶ ↑

The mirror of the Ruby source tree can be checked out with the following command:

    $ git clone https://github.com/ruby/ruby.git

There are some other branches under development. Try the following command to see the list of branches:

    $ git ls-remote https://github.com/ruby/ruby.git

You may also want to use git.ruby-lang.org/ruby.git (actual master of Ruby source) if you are a committer.

## How to build¶ ↑

See Building Ruby

## Ruby home page¶ ↑

www.ruby-lang.org/

## Documentation¶ ↑

- English

- Japanese

## Mailing list¶ ↑

There is a mailing list to discuss Ruby. To subscribe to this list, please send the following phrase:

    join

in the mail subject (not body) to the address ruby-talk-request@ml.ruby-lang.org.

## Copying¶ ↑

See the file COPYING.

## Feedback¶ ↑

Questions about the Ruby language can be asked on the Ruby-Talk mailing list or on websites like stackoverflow.com.

Bugs should be reported at bugs.ruby-lang.org. Read “Reporting Issues” for more information.

## Contributing¶ ↑

See “Contributing to Ruby”, which includes setup and build instructions.

## The Author¶ ↑

Ruby was originally designed and developed by Yukihiro Matsumoto (Matz) in 1995.

matz@ruby-lang.org