What is Ruby development? 3 essential things to know

Ruby is one of those programming languages ​​that makes software engineers happy. In recent years, its popularity has grown rapidly thanks to its extra-readable code, comprehensive libraries, and incredible community. All of this has drastically increased the number of Ruby development companies that offer a smooth, scalable and well-optimized process that attracts more and more companies every day.

Today, Ruby developers work on all types of projects, including e-commerce, web and app development, content management systems, and more. If you are interested in implementing the Ruby language in your next software development project, read on – these are 5 things you want to know about software development with Ruby.

What is Ruby development?

If you're not in a very IT-focused role, you'll probably need a brief introduction to what Ruby is and why so many companies choose it. And that's exactly what we're going to do now.

Ruby is one of the most enduring programming languages ​​out there. It was first released in 1993 by Yukihiro Matsumoto , who introduced it to the public as a mixture of other popular programming languages ​​of the time (including Perl, Eiffel, and Ada). Matsumoto's goal was to create a simple, easy-to-understand language that also allowed developers to create complex, scalable applications. Suffice it to say, he did just that.

Ruby is now the backbone of a huge number of world-renowned services, including Airbnb, Shopify, Bloomberg, Zendesk and many more. They are all using Ruby to its full potential to provide a stable, scalable and secure software infrastructure for millions of users.

There are four main reasons why so many companies prefer to hire Ruby developers: simplicity of development, cost-effectiveness, and optimization.

#1 Ruby is simply

Ruby is designed to be clear and easy to read at all stages of development. It uses English-like syntax and easy-to-follow logic that makes the code easy to read, even for people unfamiliar with software development. This allows Ruby developers to do more with less code and companies to strive for higher standards in their software solutions.

#2 Ruby is economical

Ruby is 100% open source and free to use, so any company can hire a Ruby developer and have access to thousands of incredible libraries, frameworks, and tools that facilitate the best Ruby development without paying a penny. And once scalability kicks in, the language's powerful design will allow Ruby developers to keep all processes running without breaking a sweat.

#3 Ruby is fast

There is a framework that leads the optimization of Ruby development projects: Ruby on Rails (RoR). Most Ruby projects are carried out with RoR because this framework reduces development time by more than 30%. As a simple comparison, six lines of Java code can be written in one line of RoR code. Ruby's lean codebase, rich selection of powerful plugins, and object-oriented design make the language great for optimization and speed.

Ruby makes backend development easy and efficient

Ruby is primarily used in the backend of software applications – and for good reason. Just the fact that Ruby developers need to write less code to complete complex tasks means that companies can spend less on development and still achieve excellent results.

In fact, many companies have started using Ruby to develop complete backend infrastructures for their Minimum Viable Products (MVP), rather than investing ten times more time and money into building the same thing with other tools. And another interesting fact: Ruby makes it easier for developers to update software and add new features to the codebase, even after release.

Ruby is also great for back-end development because it offers a wide range of ready-made solutions that have been tried and tested by thousands of software engineers and companies around the world. Ruby developers know that there is no need to reinvent the wheel and that many of the most valuable features in backend development are already covered in one library or another.

If you're using Ruby, you'll probably want to take a look at Ruby on Rails

Although Ruby and Ruby on Rails are not the same thing, they are often used interchangeably. Why? Because most Ruby development projects today use Ruby on Rails in one way or another. For those who don't know, RoR is an open source web application framework released in 2004. It is offered under the MIT license, which means almost unlimited license reuse and compatibility. In other words, it's essentially free.

Here are some facts about RoR you might be interested in:

• Ruby on Rails is based on the model-view-controller (MVC) software design pattern.
• The RoR framework follows two main principles that determine the underlying logic of the program: Convention over Configuration (CoC) and Do Not Repeat Yourself (DRY). The first aims to reduce and facilitate decision-making without sacrificing versatility. The latter states that Ruby developers should avoid repetitive code and redundancy. CoC and DRY are the main drivers of speed and optimization of Ruby on Rails development projects.
• RoR is known for being one of the most (if not the most) stable and predictable Ruby frameworks, which makes it a great choice for long-term, complex, and scalable projects.

If you liked this, be sure to check out our other Ruby articles.

• Which language is better, Python or Ruby?
• Ruby on Rails vs Django: Which is Right for You?
• Ruby in software development: beyond Ruby on Rails
• What is Ruby for?