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Yeah... Ruby's very nice and feels Perl-ish sometimes.

That's intentional.

"Ruby is a language of careful balance. Its creator, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) ..."

The name "Ruby" is also a play on "Perl" ("pearl").

Yep, if you like Perl you've got to spend some time with Ruby. It shares a heritage. Many of the people I used to Perl with moved over and were (and are) very happy. That said many of the "perl-isms" in Ruby are looked down upon by the community, but you can still use them ;-)

I programmed Perl for many years and Ruby as well; I see the similarities but I very much prefer Perl and find idiomatic Ruby not very pleasant to read or write. Matter of taste ofcourse.

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